It is in animation that all of its possibilities can be realized, offering things that would not even be thought of in literature or live-action films. Animation has the ability to express a creative vision with more imagination than almost anything else—from Fantasia’s dancing mops to Spirited Away’s adorable-eyed coal lumps. This is both wonderful and at times a little bit lacking, paradoxically.
The story involves a future where virtual reality has become a worldwide phenomenon, so much so that five billion people are members of a digital platform simply called ‘U’. “You can live as another you,” says the tagline for the social media-like app. “You can start a new life. You can change the world.” But whose “you” and whose “life” and whose “world”?
On the other hand, this movie does not sound dystopian about any of this. Unlike movies like Ready Player One, eXistenZ, or The Matrix this world seems to have approached such technological advances pretty much as humanity has dealt with everything on YouTube or Instagram – it could however also be described as ripping apart the social fabric of society according to former Facebook VP – but also mind-numbingly nice sometimes too and mostly dumb distraction. It’s like if society were dying slowly and pathetically with tons of cat videos and predictable selfies being its final death rattle.
5 billion U people swarm around megacities that look like computer chips and form groups; they talk to each other just like 510000 comments posted every 60 seconds in Facebook. Biometric scans from ear-pods combine with algorithmic collections of internet histories and photographs to create person avatars, which populate innumerable varieties of weirdly designed creatures throughout U’s virtual worldscape. It is clear cut then why avatars are what make anyone want to join U–they are capable of making one anew virtually.
This is exactly what Suzu needs after her mother dies while heroically attempting to save a child in danger. Suzu was very tight with her mother, who instilled love of music and singing into her. This trauma is so fresh that she physically throws up whenever she tries to sing. She barely eats, and the relationship between her and her father is mostly limited to monosyllables. Sometimes she is scared of talking about how she feels with anyone, even Hiroka, who might be her only real friend. Essentially, she’s a ghost because ghosts aren’t the people who die but everyone else left behind when that person passes away leaving the rest of us behind without their presence.
When she finds U and realizes she can change her identity, Suzu takes to the anonymity of the platform like a fish in water and becomes Belle. U has no direct relationship with reality; virtual anonymity is maintained unless someone is ‘unveiled’ by force for some reason and banned automatically from the platform. Suzu erases her past on this canvas so that only the confident musician (the one who was caged by grief) can emerge from within. Just like anything else online, people respond to her voice and persona in mixed ways; but soon enough, she begins to have both lovers and haters who multiply into millions, making her the most popular singer in another world.
The rest of the film deviates slightly from the classic Beauty and The Beast story as a disruptive dragon-like character is being hunted by U’s protectors for breaking umpteen rules while Belle sees beauty in him somehow despite his aggressiveness and tries to save him from public opinion and himself at large. This formula can be inherently toxic—Madame de Villeneuve’s original 18th-century fairy tale doesn’t hold up well today, neither do Disney adaptations. Implicitly, this traditional narrative supports a destructive misogynistic trope where women are supposed to endure emotional violence along with physical abuse at the hands of an oppressive male figure who kidnaps them. She thinks he’s a beautiful soul beneath all that swearing and insults; probably helped along by his opulent palace where he keeps her hostage. In one version of this fairy tale, when Beauty heard about Beast’s death she felt sorry for herself because if she had loved him more he might live now. His sudden awakening into a prince happens when he hears Beauty crying out that it’s all her fault.
Fortunately, Hosoda’s portrayal of Belle does not follow traditional fairytale lines as closely as it could have been done; however there are still hints of Disney-style namesake song-bursts. Suzu (Belle) is not a mere victim in the hands of the scriptwriter and director, who doesn’t imply that she is kidnapped or needs saving, or that her destructive conduct is her responsibility. Besides, their relationship with the Beast does not qualify as romantic. Her romance happens outside U, in awkward real-life situations that are difficult to explain. The Beast personifies an old saying that hurt people hurt others; thus, his behavior can be tied to cyberbullying and other internet commentaries which also tend to condemn and negate people.
Suzu begins her journey to find the Beast before U catches up with him—a quest replete with humor and pathos—because she believes he has good inside him. What she finds out is really sad but perfectly fitting for a film about how society wants to run away from its various traumas and have some kind of reality where such griefs & sorrows & fears do not exist. This matches well with lyrics throughout–a pop soundtrack (especially its epic emotional closer) does help too at times.
There is some heavy content here, but for the most part, the film is a light and breezy journey to find out who or what the Beast really is in. Consequently, Hosoda makes use of various technological concepts in his Belle, making crowded frames that are full of social media comments, internet tabs, and online video chats during the quest. In this regard, he uses online commentary as a kind of Greek chorus throughout the movie in a funny and satirical way among other screens upon screens of internet windows, video chats, text messages etc. For instance any time animations are as such; they implode into crazy anxiousness as if it’s all happening in one’s brain.
In fact animation all over the film is stunning enough to warrant 14 minutes applause at Cannes Film Festival. The vividly colored world U represents contrasts with more tonally subdued and calm two-dimensional animation of reality where parents die, children get bullied around and social anxiety thrives. The offline world may be a stark contrast to the online one but it has its own tranquility which makes it highly effective. A scene that best captures this occurs when three young characters attempt to express their real feelings over an extended sequence that is both uncomfortable and hilarious. The shot remains unchanged throughout though focusing on a dull deserted train station and there seems to be no cut whatsoever for God knows how long it feels like forever. It’s painful watching them stumbling in and out of frame while blushing relentlessly until they cannot even articulate themselves anymore openly about what they feel inside deep down their hearts.This mode should not be confused with some cute haphazard scenario involving several people falling apart amid emotions only because it illustrates how young people try to negotiate between life offline (as seen by kid readers) & life online (as seen by Suzu).
This particular movie is jam-packed with complex themes including bullying trends,viral sensations,social anxiety disorder,PSTD,and virtual reality among others, which make both the ideas of the film and some of its animation to be as busy and frenetic. Besides being a huge fan of all things digital and worldwide-web related, Belle is particularly interested in our era’s information age. Yet there is something more surprising about this: it is odd that such an amazing idea has not been fully explored or even touched on in U through fantastic animation. The online scenes are visually very creative sometimes (e.g., Pop stars ride on whales with stereos strapped to them), but often it feels like the world building here could have been so much better to bring out its full potential. The digital space itself is not properly developed since U ultimately functions as a plot device for Suzu to heal her trauma and for the movie’s story line – hence does not really become a fully realized ‘place’.
Anyway, it’s beautiful and heartwarming. While some parts of it (especially music) may get too saccharine for some people, fans of anime should enjoy this movie greatly and those who wish to deconstruct Beauty and Beast mythos will also appreciate it. Therefore, despite being sweetly buoyant at times, it doesn’t shy away from getting serious along the way when dealing with adolescent life changes which are quite challenging. To be honest Mirai was great enough that Hosoda narrowly missed having his film nominated for Best Animated Feature Oscar last time but he will probably get another one now.
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