PETER SOHN’S ELEMENTAL, which takes place in a world populated by anthropomorphised versions of fire, wind, earth and water, is one of the feel-good stories of the year: not just because it turned things around at the box office after the slowest start for a Pixar movie, but because the movie itself is a charmer, packed with some of the animation studio’s most beautiful sequences. Here, writer-director Sohn talks us through the film’s key moments.
THROUGH THE MIST
Elemental is about many things, but it’s certainly concerned with the immigrant experience (Sohn’s parents came to America from South Korea), as seen in the opening shot where the camera pierces a sea fog to find a nervous immigrant couple, the Firish Bernie (Ronnie Del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi), huddled together as their boat arrives in Element City. “The idea of following the parents coming to a new land was in most versions that we had of the film,” says Sohn. “The concept of light coming through water was always a visual metaphor that hung through all the different versions of the movie.”