Another actor sneaks into the film: inanimate and with a motor
A volkswagen yellow it became the hallmark of the road movies directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris in 2006. Inside, the life of an American family that was as dysfunctional as it was tender, throbbed as it traveled Arizona and California highways into a delusional children's beauty pageant.
With an acid sense of humor the film Little Miss Sunshine showed us in all its delirious reality **the universe of children's beauty pageants in the United States**, those peculiar replicas of the Misses pageants for adult applicants in which hypersexualized girls of just 6 or 7 years old, made up like doors and with tons of hairspray in their hairstyles they parade on a catwalk and recreate forced and corny musical numbers until diabetic coma.
The dilapidated van traveled more than 1,200 kilometers
Beyond that sociological and costumbrista white trash portrait, the film took us into everyday life of a dysfunctional family composed of a mother determined to maintain the family unit, a father selling methods to succeed in life, a misanthropic son who wants to be an army pilot, is a fan of Nietzsche and practices the vow of silence, a drug addict grandfather, a suicidal uncle specialist in Proust and of course! the adorable girl Olive who dreams of winning a beauty pageant and who will embark the whole family on the adventure of their lives.
To this insurmountable human team, a breeding ground for all kinds of crazy situations to occur, one more element is added, in this case inanimate but motorized , which ends with become another character in the movie.
It's about the dilapidated bright yellow van that serves as claustrophobic coexistence scenario during the journey from your place of residence in Albuquerque , in the state of New Mexico , to your destination in Round Beach , in California, Where does the competition take place? 'Little Miss Sunshine'.
With the clutch broken, the only way to start it was to push
Total, 1,298 kilometers of route that also cross the state of Arizona and in which the collective vehicle acquires the category of metaphor about the state of the family institution.
Shortly after starting the trip, the clutch breaks , which makes it necessary to start it on a slope or with all the members pushing and then go riding one by one. Later , the horn seizes up and starts beeping continuously and without rhyme or reason, to end the rear door ripped off out of your lane.
Still, oddly enough, it still turns out a welcoming and almost redeeming environment in the extreme circumstances that they have to star in.
The van in question was a volkswagen (also known as transporter ) of the year 1971 and it was a personal choice of the writer Michael Arndt, winner of one of the two Oscars won by the film (the other went to Alan Arkin for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of his grandfather), since he reminded him of a similar trip he had made in his childhood aboard a similar vehicle.
was part of the second generation of Kombi vans, called T2 and appeared in 1968 , after selling 1,800,000 units of the first, the T1.
As the main novelty in its design it presented a new front, with the windshield in one piece , instead of the one divided into two that the first generation wore. In addition, some bigger windows increased visibility and interior light and the engine went from 1,600 to 1,700 cc, with 48 CV of power.
The Volkswagen Kombi came to lose up to the door
During the filming of Little Miss Sunshine, the High ceilings and the r clear mirrors of the VW Kombi were very practical to place the cameras that had to shoot the interior sequences.
Total, five copies of the same model were used that were adapted to the different filming techniques used. Three of them kept their own motor for outside shots, such as when family members had to push and then progressively mount, shots that were not without considerable risk.
Dangerous or not, which undoubtedly turned out Little Miss Sunshine was a huge box office success for an independent film. initially presented in the sundance festival , where its distribution rights were sold for the record figure of 8.5 million euros.
Furthermore, the film became a symbol of defense of diversity by conveying the message that it doesn't matter how others see you if you believe in what he does and feel supported by his own.
All this through the eyes of a girl, Olive
All this through the eyes of a girl, Olive , interpreted with undoubted magnetism by the actress abigail breslin who, curiously, in the scenes in which she appears with some helmets inside the yellow Kombi I was listening to real music. A commitment of the producers so that won't listen to the bad phrases that her grandfather pronounced in fiction. The same grandfather who helped her prepare her cheeky and hilarious choreography in which the whole family would eventually be involved.
Because if that film made something clear to us, it is that the family that (in addition to dancing) travels in a united Kombi, stays together.