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Very Different from the Rest of Them is Belle


An open on an intricate and elaborate digital reality, strange and fascinating creatures float around in an endless sea of pristine light and depth; a great megalopolis of pillars and structures seemingly built out of circuitry. It is a dazzling world, its’ figures equally so -a blue whale swims through the ether with a thousand amplifiers on its’ back and an immaculate woman with flowing pink hair sings atop it. It’s marvelous, hyper-imaginative animation, a marriage of 3D and traditional technique that rare for an anime looks good. And I was so relieved when there was a cut from this to a plainer 2D, somewhat crudely designed girl drearily awakening from bed. ‘Yes’, I thought to myself. ‘There’s the Mamoru Hosoda I love.’
It’s pretty clear now that Hosoda is the great anime filmmaker of the post-Miyazaki world -I know some might argue it’s Makoto Shinkai, though I don’t think his films have the unique touch of Hosoda, much as I do appreciate his creative voice as well. Certainly Hosoda sets himself apart in his style, which favours character designs and overall palettes that are less detailed and polished than the conventional model of anime, are more loose and material, rough and minimalist -though sometimes set against heavy CGI effects that bring them into great contrast. This was especially so of his forgettable second original feature Summer Wars, and the last act of his most recent, Mirai. Still it’s a form that is very appealing and comfortable and distinct, and I was grateful to see it -for as impressive as the more showy animation is.
And if ever there was a movie to stress the importance of a subtle beauty against a more emphatic one, than it would be Belle, Hosoda’s tech revolution spin on Beauty and the Beast. The film divides its’ time between the digital world called U, a mass virtual-reality version of social media, and the more grounded real world of genuine teenage angst and anxiety that spills over into that foreboding false one. Probably one of the strongest aspects of the movie is Hosoda’s attentiveness to internet culture, as in the terrifying and bewildering chaos of it. Aesthetically, U is a really interesting environment, but it can’t help but also be a kind of inescapable hell as vapid popularity contests rule the day and users can safely be as toxic as they want in the confines of anonymity. It’s not total anonymity though, as one of the features of U is that avatars are generated off of biometric signatures and thus are attached to a single individual as a visual personification of their true character -it makes no sense but is conceptually and thematically important to the plot, especially once it gets into the familiar territory of that tale as old as time.
That reference is no accident by the way, as once the Beauty and the Beast story takes off (much later than expected), it makes no secret in cribbing from the Disney version specifically. The layout of the Beast’s Castle (and here he’s called ‘the Dragon’) has much the same dark look of that from the Disney movie, whole shots and frames are lifted exactly, such as in the dance sequence and the moment that Belle cradles him on the balcony. Even parts of the musical score have a touch of a Menkin-ish sound, especially in the most potent moments of their relationship. Hosoda perhaps is choosing to lampshade the fact that Disney has become pop culture’s largest reference point for Beauty and the Beast, though it is a mite distracting, even as these scenes push themselves visually. They can never quite compare to that earlier film.
Belle’s narrative though is luckily not so indebted to another animation classic. It’s not terribly original either as it follows an insecure teenage girl with a crush on a boy who hasn’t noticed her since she was a kid, and an ever-present trauma around the death of her mother years ago. Suzu is shy and introverted but finds a way to express herself, to sing again, through U and her alter ego Belle –who fast becomes a viral celebrity. And Hosoda translates well the discomfort of this, the overwhelming amount of notifications Suzu receives at once, the fact that the hateful ones, even if a minority, stick out to her most vividly, and of course the obsessions of some to find out her true identity. And the ways that these things are visualized within U, how the excess of everything comes across, it’s stupendously done. There’s even a corrupt law enforcement in that system made up essentially of trolls with corporate sponsorships. It’s one of the best metaphors for the modern state of the internet that we’ve seen.
And this structure, particularly with its’ internet mob culture, really works for a Beauty and the Beast story, as upon his appearance, the Dragon is instantly targeted as an ‘other’, his ugliness and scars vilified, a campaign to unmask him gaining considerable traction. All the while, Suzu of course sees his vulnerabilities and through Belle builds a relationship –one that tiptoes though around being explicitly romantic, much as the sensibility is implied. The reasons for this are problems and relate in some ways to the formula of Y/A anime. The identity of the Dragon is of course the big question, and for much of the film it is expected he will turn out to be the mysterious boy Suzu has a crush on. There is an alternative Hosoda seems to consider at a couple points that would have made for an extremely interesting inversion, but ultimately a safer albeit meaningful resolution is made –though the climax surrounding it is pretty messy as it strives to suddenly get away from the Beauty and the Beast angle for themes more current and specific.
What comes out of that though is a movie that changes direction and thesis a number of times, and doesn’t really have an overarching idea driving it –certainly not in the way Hosoda movies like Wolf Children and Mirai did. Still, the film is nice to look at, the world of U which I feared would be rendered awkwardly, has a lot of life to it, in large part due to it resisting full-on CGI. Within both worlds and visual architectures there’s a lot to love, and though the film is more technically ambitious than artistically so, Hosoda still delivers good heartfelt imagery, often set to J-pop songs of which there are too many. Yet the tenderness of his work still shines through, even as ambition and scope and commercial interests increase. And it’s what makes Belle delightful to watch.

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