Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t seen the movie Up, then what are you waiting for – hire it and watch it ASAP. This post doesn’t go into a detailed look at the plot, but it does spoil the movie, if you haven’t watched it.
Balloons.
The film makers tweak the symbol by having balloons draw Ellie and Carl together. As a child, Ellie floats a balloon to Carl, which serves to introduce the ‘married life’ montage sequence. Carl sells helium balloons at the zoo, and it is his routine life, with its mundane realities, that keeps them from setting off on their adventure to Paradise Falls. Near the end of that powerfully emotive montage, Carl floats a balloon to Ellie as she lies dying in hospital.
The film makers also use the transparency and inflation-level of the balloons to chart Carl’s growth as a character. As he pushes Russell away in his efforts to achieve his own goals, the balloons deflate and grow more opaque. I must admit, I didn’t notice this myself, but Pete Docter and Bob Peterson mentioned it in the excellent Directors’ commentary.
Finally, in the final sequence of the film, Carl and Russell sit on the curb and count coloured cars (say those last five words three times quickly). As the camera dollies back, we see Muntz’s giant dirigible, the Spirit of Adventure, ‘parked’ in the disabled spot. Carl has grown from playing with a balloon, pretending it is the Spirit of Adventure, to becoming a globe-hopping adventurer himself, in the process discovering a new family, and fulfilling his wife’s dream of living at Paradise Falls.
The final symbol I’ll look at is Ellie’s Adventure Book. The adventure book is a symbol that is seen less frequently than the others, but it has a more emotional kick when it is on-screen.
At first, Carl and Ellie work towards making their dream of living at Paradise Falls a reality. They set aside money and plan for their grand adventure. But then life happens, and things get in the way. They have to raid their savings and before long, the adventure book is out of sight – Carl and Ellie are happy living a mundane life.
We don’t see much of the adventure book until much later in the movie. Carl succeeds in his mission – he has dragged the house to Paradise Falls. He sits down in his chair and leafs through the adventure book. He had assumed that the ‘stuff I’m going to do’ pages were still blank, as Ellie never made it to Paradise Falls.
In Conclusion
Symbols seem to be most effective when they are subtle – rather than calling attention to a symbol and hammering the point home to the audience, I think it is better to understate, but repeat, so that it resonates with the viewer, without them necessarily being aware of it.
Another thing about symbols is that they should be integrated into the theme of a movie. I believe that the screenwriters of Up did that very well. The badges, balloons, and Ellie’s book all tie in with regret and the pursuit of what it means to live a meaningful life. The characters are able to realise what makes life worth living through their interaction with the symbolic objects.
What is also done well in Up is that the symbols are seen in a positive and negative light. With the badges, we see Muntz chase a dream too far and lose his humanity, and Carl nearly make that same mistake. The balloons chart Carl’s fall, as well as his rediscovery of living with a purpose. Ellie’s book is both a symbol of regret, and a life lived to the full.