Elementals deserves so much more recognition that what is given. It is a beautiful film with an amazing concept and one of the most grounded depictions of a first generation immigrant family in a children's animated film. It is such a shame that such a large amount of people ignore children's media - they're really missing out.

The film is set in a world where the four elements become akin with different races, co-residing in Element City, a modern cityscape housing Water, Earth, and Air people in its downtown, and delegating the outskirts to Fire people. This is known as Firetown, baring resemblance to other immigrant spaces within large multi-racial metropolises: little India, Chinatown etc. A space where culture blooms, traditions stay alive and one can get a tiny taste of home.

The adjustment to city life (now synonymous with modernity, a rejection of tradition) is balanced with the Lumen's (the main family that we follow) desire to keep tradition alive, symbolised in the blue eternal flame that they tend to. That even the smallest spark of it saved after catastrophe has the ability to grow again in a new space. Their daughter, Ember's, only connection to this previous life and space that her parents inhabited is this blue flame, which she risks her life to protect towards the end of the film.

"How could I ever repay a sacrifice that big" - Ember Lumen

Ember's journey is one that reflects that of so many other second generation children. Her pride and desire to follow in the steps of her parents, yet, feeling stifled by the scale of her parents sacrifice in giving her this new life - one that they did not have for themselves. Her choice to leave Element City at the end of the film to pursue a different job to the one that was expected of her is one of the most poignant examples of this journey to selfhood that second generation immigrants experience. The duality of having one side of you that is grounded in your heritage, and the other that has been exposed to life outside of tradition.

We're seeing more and more films about breaking generational cycles (Encanto, CoCo, Turning Red) but Elementals to me has one of the most poignant examples of this break in tradition whilst respecting the sacrifice made by generations before us. The last scene of the film when Ember performs the 'big bow' to her father (an action that he gave to his father that wasn't returned) brings me to tears every time I watch it. The film is circular in this way as it starts with Ember's parents stepping off of a boat after leaving Fireland, and ends with Ember stepping on a boat, except, her relationship with her parents isn't fractured like her parents' relationship with theirs was. Her father returning the bow at the end is an endorsement, a sign of mutual respect and love.

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