SAUSAGE PARTY

US, 2016, 89 minutes, Colour.
Voices of: Seth Rogen, Kristin Wiig, Michael Cera, Salma Hayek, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd, Bill Hader, David Krumholz, Danny Mc Bride, Edward Norton, Craig Robinson.
Directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon.
An anarchic cosmological allegory.

Not the first description that might come to mind for audiences rolling up for Sausage Party expecting a raucous comedy, especially since Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg wrote the screenplay and Seth Rogen has the central role. For this audience it might seem just an MA certificate raunchy comedy.

And, of course that is what it is also – a crude and often crass surface while, for those who have the time and patience to go under the surface, listening to the clues amid the crass, Sausage Party is trying to take on some of the meaning of life.

Not that most audiences will necessarily want to go to this kind of story of the meaning of life – it will depend, as one reviewer remarked, on the compatibility of the sense of humour of the film and the audience sense of humour. In the words of Mark Twain for many, for very many, never the tween shall meet.

So, what is the sausage party? Setting is the supermarket with customers coming in preparing to celebrate fourth of July. And the main characters are sausages altogether in a packet adjacent to a group of buns. These products, anthropomorphised with strong vocal talent, have the belief that if they are sold, they will be taken out of the supermarket and find out a life after shelf in the Beyond. They sing quite an elaborate song to the Guards, the humans in the shop, projecting on to them a great benevolence, all their hopes and securities – and, we hear, as they sing Guards, the it does sound like God.

The humans and film are all ugly and aggressive characters, cooking the sausages, slicing them, or else aggressive customers and obnoxious staff, especially one who takes a sausage home but is high on drugs and decapitates himself. Stupid humans!

One of the sausages, Barry (Michael Cera) gets separated from the packet, sees the death of his friend Carl, wanders through terrifying he underworld which includes a vicious mop, but eventually get back to the packet and is reunited with his friend Frank (Seth Rogen). Frank has his eye on one of the buns (a quite anatomical female bun), Brenda (Kristin Wiig), who also gets waylaid, chased, and has to team up with a group of products, a Jewish bagel and a Muslim bread, and the Mexican taco (Salma Hayak).

Whether the screenwriters knew how to end the film, they opt for all the products involved in an extreme orgiastic climax (either satirically funny or offputting) and the products surviving 4th July. There are a lot of familiar voices including Paul Rudd, James Franco,

While animation films are generally geared to children and family audiences, Sausage Party is not!

1. The title, expectations? Animation? The products at a supermarket and anthropomorphising them? Shapes and realism? Animation and fantasy? The voice cast? The visual style and action?

2. Making the products human, demonising the human beings, the guards, the customers, oppressive, liars?

3. The serious aspects of the film: the song about the guards and hearing the word God? Lives, destinies, the belief in the Beyond, hopes? Destinations? Defying the guards – God? Asserting themselves?

4. The song, assertion, self-deception? Belief?

5. The US, 4th July, the touch of Jewish presence and Muslim? And the incorporation of jokes, even gay?

6. The ordinary products, becoming persons, their qualities?

7. The use of language, imagery, sexual, the behaviour, survival – and the all-in orgiastic ending? The meaning of this in terms of the themes of the film?

8. The characters, the sausages, in the packet, next to the buns, expectations, to be sold, to go out to the Beyond and happiness? People buying them, the falls, Barry and his nightmare journey? Carl and his being cut, the cooking? The underworld, the mop, the druggie assistant, at home, with the products, the knife, the drugs and his being beheaded, Barry
bringing back his head? Frank, hero, with the other sausages, with Barry? The attraction to Brenda? The quest to find Brenda, saving her?

9. Brenda, the buns, their look, feminine, the genital overtones? Fate, rescue? Teresa, the taco, her sexual attitude, protecting Brenda, everybody being reunited?

10. The bagel, the Jew, the Arab, the action – and the sexual overtones, gay?

11. The products in action, the gun, the chocolates, the sauces?

12. The guard, the mop and its defeated?

13. Sexual overtones, language, frankness, the sausage and the bun and intercourse? The orgy?

14. Gay themes, the Muslim, the due, paradise and divergence?

15. The recovery of the products, fighting back, assertion?

16. The audience for this kind of film – and combative combat abilities of senses of humour?