Pixar’s ‘Bao’ powered by women — and food
Director Domee Shi re-created her Chinese American home in new short
What parents haven’t heard themselves unknowingly blurt out something to the effect of wanting to devour their child? “Ooh, I could eat you up,” we say to the baby, or as we pinch the youngster’s cheeks. Maurice Sendak knew as much in 1963 when he had the Wild Things cry to Max, “Oh, please don’t go. We’ll eat you up, we love you so!”
So four years ago, when Pixar story artist Domee Shi was brainstorming the idea for “Bao” — her delightful and unexpectedly moving new short film running before “Incredibles 2” — she drew the timeless, folkloric idea of a parent’s consuming love, literally. What if a mother with empty-nest syndrome ate her child to quench the agony of seeing him grow up and walk out the door?
“It’s weird and a little dark, I know. But I remembered how my mom would often hold me close
and say, ‘Oh, I wish I could put you back in my stomach so I knew exactly where you were at all times,’ ” said Shi, 28. She was all smiles a few days after the wrap party for “Incredibles 2” and “Bao” at Pixar’s Steve Jobs Building in Emeryville.
“Bao,” about a Chinese mother whose steamed dumpling (or “bao”) comes unexpectedly to life, has already received glowing reviews for the surprisingly emotional journey it takes audiences on in just seven wordless minutes — from the
moment the mother hears the dumpling let out a newborn’s cry through its cuddly childhood, surly adolescence and her eventual heartbreak when it’s ready to leave home, a fiancee on its arm.
“I’m an only child with Chinese parents, so I was very protected. I’d always been my mom’s ‘little dumpling,’ ” said Shi, who moved to Toronto from Chongqing, China, when she was 2. She started at Pixar as an intern right after college in 2011 and has since worked on “The Good Dinosaur,” “Inside Out,” “Incredibles 2” and next year’s “Toy Story 4.”
With “Bao,” she became the first woman to direct a Pixar short in the studio’s 32-year history.
“It was a challenge to put myself in my mom’s shoes and try to understand things from her point of view, not just from the kid’s perspective who’s being smothered,” said Shi, who lives in Oakland. “That became the spark, to create a modern-day fairy tale with vibes of the Little Gingerbread Man (whose mother bakes him, only to have him run away), but do a Chinese version of it.
“I’ve always been a huge foodie, passionate not just about eating but drawing food, too,” said Shi. She used to have a web-based comic series called “My Food Fantasies,” where she’d illustrate outlandish scenarios “like how I wish I could wrap myself in pastry dough, bake in a sauna and then eat my way out.”
So when word went out at Pixar in 2015 that the company was soliciting ideas for new shorts, Shi had plenty of playful material to draw on. She pitched “Bao” along with two other ideas, “and I didn’t know if they’d go for it because it’s definitely quirky and kind of dark. But Pete Docter (director of ‘Up’ and ‘Inside Out’), who’s been my mentor and my advocate, was on the panel and he loved the idea. He told me, ‘Believe in your weirdness. That’s what makes it cool.’ ”
Like other Pixar successes, including last year’s “Coco,” “Bao” is an exercise, said Shi, in expressing universal themes — “about parents learning to let go of their kids” in the case of “Bao” — through the exacting specificity of place and culture.
“Bao” is set mostly in a modest house, based on drawings of Shi’s childhood home, with “all those little details” that ring true in a Chinese immigrant home: “specific Sichuan dishes on the table, the wall calendar, the rice cooker always present in the dining room, tin foil covering the drip pans on the stove. It’s like using a cultural paintbrush to tell a story everyone can relate to.”
Shi’s mother, Ningsha Zhong, is credited as a consultant on “Bao.” She visited Pixar twice to give the entire crew of 14 animators and effects artists hands-on dumpling-making lessons.
“We recorded her exact motions, her hands kneading and folding the dough,” said Shi. “Animating food is super tricky because it’s organic, not rigid or structural. And everyone in the world is an expert in what good food looks like.”
As an homage to mothers, “Bao” is ideally suited to run before Elastigirl’s triumphant return in the “Incredibles” sequel, said Pixar producer Becky Neiman-Cobb (“Finding Dory”), who led the short’s all-female leadership team. “We had no idea what feature ‘Bao’ would go in front of during the (18 months of ) production,” she said. “Once we learned it would be ‘Incredibles 2,’ we were beyond thrilled. The shared emphasis on mothers is incredible.”
Shi was interviewed before Pixar’s announcement that John Lasseter would be leaving the company, following allegations of inappropriate behavior toward female employees. Asked about the studio’s boys-club reputation, she said she’s encouraged “that I might be the beginning of the generation of women that slowly reaches higher positions. Change is slow, but there are now more girls enrolling in animation schools than boys. The female storyartist population here has doubled since I started seven years ago.”
In fact, when “Bao” was green-lit over about 20 other animators’ ideas, Shi didn’t even realize at first that she had made history as the first female director. “I just remember screaming and rolling on the floor in my office, and calling my mom.”