Sometimes a love story comes along that is perfect.

Sometimes a film meant for children makes you cry.

Pixar’s Up is both.

A four-minute montage in a ninety-six minute film may be considered to be a little long. Yet the four-minute montage at the beginning of Pixar’s Up neither feels too long nor feels out of place for such a short film. Montages have long been used to condense stories–to say a lot in a short amount of time. Jennifer Van Sijll in Cinematic Storytelling describes montage as being “created through an assembly of quick cuts, disconnected in time or place, that combine to form a larger idea. A montage is frequently used to convey passage of time, coming of age, or emotional transition.” The montage in Up begins about seven minutes into the film immediately following the wedding of Carl and Ellie, two childhood sweethearts. The montage cuts between short clips of their life together, compressing a span of fifty or sixty years into four minutes.