Summary
One of the reigning monarchs of animation returns to the world of digital playgrounds for a deeply emotional exploration of duality and trauma.
When The Matrix Resurrections was released in cinemas late last year, movie audiences were reminded that we have been partly plugged into virtual worlds for decades. Yet that mirror universe has always forced us to lead at least two lives. The duality of this existence is something filmmaker Mamoru Hosoda knows so well, with his body of work often exploring the lines between this world and something ‘other.’ Hosoda continues his thematic journey, linking early Digimon — and especially Summer Wars — with this modern fable.
A loose adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, it follows Suzu (voiced by singer Kaho Nakamura), an alienated high school student left unable to sing due to a major childhood trauma. In the virtual world known as ‘U’, Suzu creates a persona she names ‘Bell’ who can sing like Suzu used to. Her popularity rises, and the community names her “Belle” due to her beauty. Yet an avatar known as Dragon begins to sabotage her, so Suzu and her new community of IRL friends begins to investigate who he might be.
BELLE (竜とそばかすの姫) is one of those delightful films that as soon as you think you’ve got it figured out, it pulls the rug out from under you. Just like Hosoda’s earlier film The Boy and the Beast, the high-concept is a vehicle for something more personal. Where that film alluded to Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, here Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s 16th century fairy tale is the backdrop for exploring self-image and personal worth in the digital age. Indeed, the literal translation of the Japanese title is ‘The Dragon and the Freckled Princess.’
There’s the typical Japanese high school stuff here, of course, but Hosoda transcends all that by lifting up the curtain for a moment. U might be a fictional world where the characters show each other a kind of facade, but we viewers do that every day through everything from our clothes to our social media profiles. As the film unfolds, themes of abandonment and bullying become part of the landscape. There’s a handful of absolutely heartbreaking scenes in the film’s climax — when the identity of the Dragon is at last discovered — and few dry eyes will be left in the house.
With the assistance of veteran Disney animators and character designers Jin Kim (Hercules through Raya and the Last Dragon) and Michael Camacho (Summer Camp Island) on the character design of Belle — not to mention studio Cartoon Saloon contributing to the background work of the world of U — this is also one of Studio Chizu’s most visually stunning animated films to date. The stylised settings push the boundaries of the animated canvas: the spread of gossip is rendered like a strategy game, for example.
For the longest time, Hosoda was dubbed a successor to the Studio Ghibli legacy. Yet with BELLE it is entirely clear that he is well beyond such reductive labels. The hyperbole belongs entire to Hosoda and his Studio Chizu team. Already a massive hit in its native Japan, do not miss your chance to see one of the best animated films of recent memory.
2021 | Japan | DIRECTOR: Mamoru Hosoda | WRITERS: Mamoru Hosoda | CAST: Kaho Nakamura, Ryō Narita, Shōta Sometani, Tina Tamashiro, Lilas Ikuta, Kōji Yakusho, Takeru Satoh | DISTRIBUTOR: Toho (JPN), GKids (US), Kismet (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 125 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 16 July 2021 (JPN), 14 January 2022 (US), 20 January 2022 (AUS)
