Whenever someone asks me what my favorite movie is, usually during a lull in a conversation, I stop and think for a moment. If I do not know the asker well, or I'm in a film class, I will say Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (2022). It's simple, well known, and broadly communicates my opinions on films broadly with something that won several awards. And it's a good movie! Easily my second favorite movie. No, if someone I know, and love, and trust asks me what my favorite movie is, it's Speed Racer (2008) dir. the Wachowskis.
Critically panned on release for the strange tone and poor CGI, Speed Racer (2008) is not considered a great of the medium, in contrast to EEAaO. What Speed Racer (2008) is is fucking Fun. But not like, turn your brain off popcorn movie. Because in addition to being an incredibly fun movie, Speed Racer is a movie with a surprising amount on it's mind. One of the scenes near the middle, when the title character is doubting himself and seeks answers from his mom, makes plain that the movie is primarily concerned with the creation of art.
When I watched the movie with longtime friend and tabletop game designer Hazel, I said this was like, running subtext, but she pointed out that it's also Just Text. Spelled plain and worn brazenly on its sleeve. In this world, racing is an artform, and the title character is facing one of the great conflicts of coming of age narratives: Give up on making meaningful art, or sell out and become a buisnessman. Speed Racer (2008) is just Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man but if instead of painting, he drove a cartoon car that can double jump.[1]
Anyway, that's beside the point. I wanna talk about the Final Race scene because I've been thinking about it a lot. If you haven't seen the movie yet, go watch it right now. Don't even have to come back here, I just want you to watch it. But if you have watched it and want a refresh on the Final Race sequence, you can click the speed racer gif on the homepage or this link if that's too much.
The scene is kind of. Immaculate? I keep it handy whenever I'm down and need something to immediately get me amped. Speed Racer (2008) is a movie about rejecting corporate interest and making the art you want to make. The Final Race sequence starts with Speed Racer doing that. Full stop. He shows the world that the guy who tried to poach him is a sham, Speed is finally free to pursue race car driving as a career without a slimey creep ever trying to stop him again. He's won. It's over. But it isn't, is it? Because its still the middle of a race. The plot is finished, sure, but this is a movie about the joy of making your art. He's not done painting yet.
So he pauses for a second. Considers. Focuses. Then, he gets back to it, and we get some of the movie's most abstract imagery. Now, up to this point, the movie's already painted itself as existing in a cartoon universe. There's ninjas and mobsters with tommy guns and caves shaped like skulls, and every shot of the track of this final race has looked like some kind of fucked up Kaizo Mario Kart track. But here, while the artist is giving us the finishing touches on his masterpiece, we see the world as a colorful abstract. One of my favorite shots, probably of the entire film, happens at about 2:22 of the video upload. It goes by less then a second, but we see Speed drive past in an overhead, the track behind him dissolving like oil in water. We see him paint for us.
The main... hard to say, let's call it Thesis of the scene is Speed solidifying for himself why he drives. We see flashbacks throughout, always cutting to them via a panning shot with Speed's head as the pan. Throughout, it's people telling Speed what they value in his art, what it means to them. Speed's decision, to reject the corporate system and remain independent to pursue the work that's meaningful to him, is here being interrogated. Was it worth it? Does driving matter this much to me? And here, as his mind is clear in his work, he reflects on what it means to him, and every time we flash back to earlier in the film, the same answer repeats: It means everything.
There's this old tweet by Defunctland, where in response to the question 'what is your least favorite part of your hobby' he responds 'I hate literally every step in the film making process. The only thing I hate more than making a film is not making a film' that I think about a lot. If you've spent a nonzero amount of time in a friend group with many artists, you've probably heard one or more of them echo the sentiment. Speaking personally, you can easily tell if my girlfriend Lace has made a good deal of project on her novel lately or not because if she has she'll have a generally upbeat mood, but if she hasn't she'll be in the pits.
I think part of why the last race sequence in Speed Racer (2008) gets me so much is that it reminds me of the antithesis: There is no greater feeling than the exhiliration of making your art.
[1]. Well, ok, the car can't actually double jump. It can single jump. Also that description of the movie is like. Weirdly self-efacing? I like the movie a lot, and the fact that it's very goofy is important and good. is my point.