Cast: (voiced by) Kaho Nakamura, Nyō Narita, Shōta Sometani, Tina Tamashiro, Lilas Ikuta, Kōji Yakusho, Takeru Satoh
Director: Mamoru Hosoda
Writer: Mamoru Hosoda
The Internet is so often a place of such misanthropy and toxicity, it’s easy to lose sight of the infinite potential and possibilities it lends to the world. People all over the world are more connected than they’ve ever been and, as Hosoda sees it at least, there is room for those same people to discover and display the most authentic and idealised (yes, I know that’s an oxymoron, but so are many things on the Internet) versions of themselves. There are as many dark sides to that possibility as there are light, and the film has no illusion about that. The Internet it depicts is a place where trolls roam about in mobs and choirs, where the amount of data and information is so abundant it can be almost impossible to sift through the chaos and the noise, and where most users fear nothing more than being exposed for the plain, ordinary people that they are. And yet, even with all of that, there is still immense beauty to be found in the idea that a shy, sad girl can become the beautiful, beloved songstress she lacks the confidence to be in real life, that her music can speak to and resonate with millions of people from all walks of life, and that two souls who share a profound mutual pain and loneliness can find and save each other in the middle of all the chaos. Belle is, simply put, a beautiful film.
Our heroine is Suzu Naito, a lonely 17-year-old who loved singing as a young girl, but has not been able to utter a note since losing her mother years ago. Today she has a strained relationship with her father, pines for her protective childhood friend Shinobu, and wishes she could be like the popular and pretty Ruka. Her closest friend is genius hacker Hiroka, who points her towards U, a virtual metaverse of 5 billion subscribers that gives each user a unique avatar based on their biometric information. In the virtual world of U, Suzu can become Belle, a beautiful anime princess with flowing pink hair and an angelic voice. She sings and becomes a viral sensation, her millions of followers enraptured by her stunning performance and desperate to learn who she could possibly be. During one of her shows, Belle encounters the Dragon, a beastly figure with a wrathful temper on the run from the Justices, the self-appointed authority on matters of law and justice. They wish to expose the Dragon’s real identity and banish him from U, but Belle sees in the beast (do you see where this is going?) the same kind of alienation and sorrow that she feels in her own life and tries to encourage him to confide in her.
Belle then is clearly inviting itself to be read as a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast, specifically the Disney iteration with many images and motifs that recall sequences from the 1991 animated classic, such as the rose petals and the ballroom dance. But it’s also, on some level anyway, a reimagining that Disney could never make today, bringing fresh emotional material and new readings to the sturdy foundation and making something far more interesting than a straight retelling could ever have been. In this rendition of the tale as old as time, it is empathy, not true love, that brings Belle and the Dragon together. You see, a person’s avatar is created by U’s algorithm as a manifestation of their true selves, bringing their hidden strengths to the forefront. Belle’s beauty then is an extension of her compassion while the Dragon’s beastliness is less of an affliction or a curse that it is an extension of the personal troubles and inner demons that conflict him. Upon finding each other and discovering how similar they are despite their aesthetic differences, both learn from the other how to make their inner strengths external and they inspire each other to overcome their greatest turmoils. Belle is a love story, but viewers should understand that it is not a tale of romantic love. Love comes in many forms.
Many recent films have attempted to visually depict the Internet in a similar fashion to this film, from Ready Player One to Ralph Breaks the Internet; Belle outdoes them all. The lush colours and playful shapes that make up the world of U are spectacular throughout. The fanciful images that Hosoda and his team dream up, from the Dragon’s gothic castle in the night sky to the thousands of differently shaped and sized avatars that make up this world to the humpback whale fixed with hundreds of speakers like barnacles that Belle sings atop while wearing a luminous dress made of flowers, are staggering in their intricacy and liveliness. The creative use of imagery, such as the barrage of notifications that dominate the screen when Belle goes viral and the sheer abundance of bodies that take up the infinite spaces of U, convey to us the sense of a massive, sprawling multiverse of connection and communication that is constantly moving and evolving. In many scenes, chaos reigns supreme in a way that feels familiar to those who spends large segments of their day online. If this it how it actually looked and felt to use the Internet, it might not be such a consistently terrible place for so many of its users!
Of course, the scenes that take place in the real world aren’t to be discounted. The art in these scenes is comparatively more naturalistic, in keeping with Ghibli’s usual style. A moment that stood out in particular revolves around a romantic subplot and comprises a prolonged motionless shot of three characters in a train station. Stillness is an underrated quality in animation, and here it is used exquisitely. That this sequence can co-exist in a film that also contains such a lively, sparkling depiction of the virtual world is a testament to Hosoda’s mastery of tone. Though the film treads familiar grounds in its depictions of adolescent romance, familial trauma, and even online culture, the way it goes about them is so dazzling and inventive that it feels revelatory. Belle is a film that leaves you feeling elated and hopeful, even in the face of the hardship that it concedes. Suzu is, of course, disheartened at first when she sees some of the negative feedback Belle has received, but then Hiroka is on hand to remind her that for every disparaging comment, there are a dozen and more praising her and encouraging her to pursue her calling. The movie is a reminder that for all the bile it generates, the Internet is a net-positive good for the world for the way it gives people their voices and the ability for others to listen to their voices.
★★★★
Aled Warren Films 