(from the archives)
Many years ago now, I stumbled across Upside Down (2012) on Netflix. It’s a classic story of star-crossed love between a boy from one world and a girl from another. Except that in this case, what keeps them from getting down is quite literally an agreement on which direction it is.
So, already, we’re talking about a very far-out type of story universe, taking something we all take for granted (namely: gravity) and messing with it.
Then, when I started sitting down to write about it a short time later, I stumbled upon another film with a similar core concept: サカサマのパテマ <<Patema Inverted>> (2013). After viewing Patema, it seemed only fitting to talk about both of these movies together and how one clearly rose above the other with their treatment of the common conceit.
Upside Down
I am pretty sure “Visually Striking Foreign Science Fantasy Movies Starring Kirsten Dunst” should be a Netflix suggestion category because Upside Down was the second film I’d seen there that would fall into it (the first being Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011) which maybe one day I’ll do a post about because DAMN.
Upside Down takes place on a binary planet system where matter is (somehow) gravitationally attracted only to its home planet. One planet (Up Top) is the domain of the rich and privileged, while the inhabitants of the other (Down Below) live in poverty. In the typical capitalist fashion, Up Top exploits Down Below, pillaging its resources, processing them, and selling back the enriched products to Down Below at an inflated cost.
The ‘story spine‘ goes a bit like this (spoilers ahoy):
Once upon a time, there was a poor boy named Adam who lived Down Below. And every day he would pine after his lost forbidden lover from Up Top named Eden who had been injured (and, he presumed, died) while they were trying to escape capture for violating a contact taboo between their worlds. Until one day Adam saw Eden on a Television Show from Up Top and realized she wasn't dead. And because of that, he hatched a plan to pretend to be from Up Top so he could reunite with her. And because of that, he discovered she didn't remember him and in order for their love to bloom, he'd have to continue the charade indefinitely in order to be with her. And because of that, he experienced a series of near misses, mishaps, setbacks, and had the whole thing blow up in his face. Until finally, alongside a friend he had made Up Top, he developed technology that would change the nature of both worlds and allow people to travel freely between them. And ever since that day, the two worlds have lived in harmony and Adam and Eden have lived in wedded bliss.
So, as a narrative work, its pretty solid, and the Hero becomes ‘Master of Two Worlds’ in a quite literal sense.
Where Upside Down goes sideways is how the filmmakers’ escalating visual effects-play quickly undermines the principles of their own world-building, requiring audience disbelief to be in suspension in a similar way to Adam and Eden’s love scene. The rules of Dual Gravity are revealed to not actually be dependent on the ‘home world’ of a given object (something they state explicitly early on,) but work according to the needs of the plot.
サカサマのパテマ <<Patema Inverted>>
In Sakasama no Patema (literally “Upside-Down Patema”) we follow the titular character as she discovers a peculiar truth about her world. Its ‘story spine‘ goes a bit like this (again, spoilers ahoy):
Once upon a time, there was a girl named Patema who lived underground. And every day she went about her life carefully avoiding all the "Danger Zones" that surrounded the caves her society lived in. Until one day a friend of hers went missing near one of the Danger Zones. And because of that, she discovered the world above ground where down was up, met a boy named Age from the surface who saved her from 'falling up' into the sky, but she was soon captured and imprisoned as an 'invert' by the totalitarian state on the surface. And because of that, Age enlisted the help of Patema's people to rescue her, and in doing so the two of them make an incredible discovery about the shared history of both worlds. And because of that, Patema and Age team up to reveal this forgotten truth to both of their worlds. Until finally they succeeded in their efforts to reconcile their two peoples and the truth that has been hidden above/below them for all of their recorded history.
Which, right away, is a much more satisfying, well-rounded story to begin with, even with all the specific details I trimmed out to not give the whole thing away. Patema changes its world through the spirit of exploration and peace and reconciliation of two estranged societies, and Upside Down changes its world through forbidden love. Which, ok, cute, but in the end it just isn’t enough to truly satisfy. There’s also no moments in Patema where one of the two leads pretends to be what they are not as the filmmakers frantically hand-wave obvious world-building discontinuities so quickly it’s surprising there isn’t a low hum present in the sound design.
But all that said, (and I’m not even commenting on the ham-fisted character naming) Upside Down isn’t garbage. If you can keep yourself from over-thinking it (easier for some than others) it can be a sweet story with some great visual effects work and funny moments.
And after you’ve finished it, definitely check out Sakasama no Patema because I definitely feel it does a better job with staying grounded in a world turned on its head.