Zwei meiner besten Freund*innen brachten mich einst darauf, mir die Filme DER JUNGE UND DAS BIEST sowie AME & YUKI – DIE WOLFSKINDER anzuschauen – ich bin ihnen noch heute dankbar für diese tollen Tipps, denn beide Filme haben es in die Riege meiner liebsten Filme überhaupt geschafft. Umso neugieriger machte mich der Film BELLE, der ebenfalls aus der Feder des gefeierten Regisseurs Mamoru Hosoda stammt und gleichzeitig die Essenz einer meiner liebsten Disney-Geschichten aufgreift und in einer Anime-Fassung kombiniert mit der modernsten Social-Media-Welt präsentiert. Ich liebe die Grundidee, die hinter BELLE steckt, und habe mich sofort in den Gedanken verliebt, die Filme unserer Jugend noch einmal im Anime-Format aufleben zu lassen. Hosoda erzählt eine wundervolle Romanze und greift viele soziale und gesellschaftliche Themen auf, die aktueller denn je sind und versucht, das Phänomen TikTok auf seine eigene Art und Weise zu entschlüsseln.

Lange Zeit macht das Werk vor allem durch beeindruckende Sounds und lebhafte, farbenprächtige Bilder auf sich aufmerksam, verliert mit der Zeit aber leider an Aussagekraft und verlässt zunehmend den Pfad des Erfolges. Es ist deutlich zu spüren, wie Hosoda zwanghaft eine moralische Aussage zusteuert und dafür jedes Risiko in Kauf nimmt. Dies ist leider teilweise sehr unangenehm, überladen und verwirrend und tut dem Film nicht gut, weshalb das Werk leider mit der Zeit stark an Qualität verliert. Dennoch möchte ich den Film empfehlen, denn ein Blick lohnt sich auf jeden Fall.

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Belle ©2021 Koch Films

Belle ©2021 Koch Films

As the third most successful film of 2021, an anime has of course once again made it onto the podium in Japan, which will only be released here with a delay of almost a year. BELLE celebrated its premiere in Cannes, where it was acclaimed for several minutes and to date has earned a total of almost 64 million US dollars internationally. The German anime community is also already very much looking forward to the work, as it was directed by none other than Mamoru Hosoda, who is internationally acclaimed for grandiose works such as OKAMI KODOMO NO AME TO YUKI. Among others, TOKI WO KAKERU SHÔJO ensured that the director is now also a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures. For his excellent dubbing cast, the Japanese director relies on Kaho Nakamura, a singer who has won several awards, Ryo Narita, a young actor who also worked on YOUR NAME, and Shota Sometani, with whom Hosoda has worked before.

Here’s what it’s about

Suzu is mentally distressed and socially isolated. Since the death of her mother, she has changed massively and has lost touch with modern life. One day, however, when the new social media platform U comes to her attention, she senses an opportunity to give free rein to her feelings and her soul. With a beguiling song, she immediately wins the hearts of many people and in no time an incredibly large community forms around this new internet star. She begins to live the classic life of an influencer and simply let herself be guided by her inner self. But as time goes by, she realises that in the digital world, she can not only be heard by everyone, but also that a certain responsibility rests on her and together with a mysterious figure, she faces challenges she could never have dreamed of. A journey of self-discovery begins for Suzu, and on it she must learn what it really means to live.

Review

More topical than ever, life in the digital world is shown by BELLE. Touted as THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST in the days of TikTok, this description absolutely nails it and leaves little room for further explanation of content. The film examines personality structures in the present day, taking a close look at loneliness in the digital age in particular, but also at the universally present ideals of beauty, unrealistic wishful thinking about life and the tragedy of many people classifying themselves as insufficient for society in terms of character and ability.

Belle ©2021 Koch Films

For BELLE, the basic idea of TikTok was adapted and redeveloped as a U-system. However, the principle is quite similar. Users from all over the world can connect on this social media platform and follow their idols as well as discover new talents themselves. The possibilities of skill presentation are manifold and range from dancing, singing and acting to presenting sporting skills or simply revealing superficialities such as beauty. However, U goes a step further than TikTok and creates a digital space where users can actually live and spend their free time. Similar to what we already got to know in READY PLAYER ONE or what Mark Zuckerberg is currently trying to create with Meta, all users are avatars in a virtual environment and can interact with each other there. This is the largest network in the world with over five billion users.

The curse and blessing of a new generation

The digital world is both a curse and a blessing, and BELLE makes this frighteningly clear once again. On the one hand, many people are offered a platform by means of which they can overcome shyness, self-doubt and introversion and at the same time network with almost the entire world. At the same time, however, it also offers the much easier possibility to commit crimes, to remain unnoticed or simply to escape from reality, from what is actually important. The shift in perception is increasing more and more, and the centre of life of many people is increasingly shifting to the digital, which in turn leads to increased real loneliness. The past two years in particular, which have been marked by lockdowns time and again, have clearly shown how extreme the effects can be, but also how positive such networking can be. At the same time, the governments of the world are facing a major problem, because accelerated communication is not always a blessing.

Belle ©2021 Koch Films

With BELLE, Mamoru Hosoda once again proves that he has an eye for social issues and manages to analyse society in its basic features. Already in the wonderful films OKAMI KODOMO NO AME TO YUKI and BAKEMONO NO KO, which is streamable on Netflix, he delivered impressive social dramas that shimmy along the central social values and do not revolutionise the film landscape in their meaning, but still create worlds that touch. Similar to the aforementioned works, Hosoda likes to use the humanisation of animals. Basically, this is also done here, although this time the explanation is based on the avatar system. At the same time, he creates a link to his earlier works, because one animal in particular should catch the eye of fans as a reference to BAKEMONO NO KO.

Fairy tales rethought

BELLE takes on the brutality of everyday life and tries to show us what is important in life without pointing the finger. To do this, the story makes use of a grandiose trick. The popular story of THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST has been adapted in a modern style and finds its way into the main story again and again. The similarities are unmistakable, because whole incidents have been taken over more or less 1:1 and characters have only been slightly altered in appearance, so that they still remain comparable. The basic idea of setting this classic and still beautiful fairy tale in the modern digital age and visualising it via anime is simply great and completely staggering in its genius. Already in BUBBLE, for example, we see a modern interpretation of THE LITTLE MERMAID that is simply superb visually and in its basic concept.

Belle ©2021 Koch Films

In almost exactly two hours of play, we are literally flooded with impressions, which partly ensures that not all experiences can be processed immediately. A colourful firework of colours meets musical enjoyment and several different levels of content. The film’s lead sound is very catchy and rousing. The problem with it, however, is that a very jumpy narrative style has been chosen, in which the overall tenor always remains recognisable, but many key moments are simply skipped over. As a result, a fluid and coherent structure is lost, which in turn diminishes the lightness of the film. In particular, we only get to know the U-system very superficially and struggle for a long time to understand how it works. It gives the impression that individual film building blocks have been arbitrarily stacked on top of each other and in an attempt to create a work of art, a new-fangled and indefinable sculpture has finally been developed. The romance between the two protagonists is heartbreaking and lovingly crafted and corresponds to the director’s usual strengths.

Belle ©2021 Koch Films

Lost in its own maze

Unfortunately, the digital U-world and the cinematic reality do not quite fit together, creating two completely different opposites that find no harmony. Only towards the end of the film is there an attempt at a symbiosis of the two worlds, but this appears very artificial and forced and therefore fails to present the expressiveness that the setting should actually offer. Hosoda wanted to link too many different levels in BELLE and works obsessively towards a moral resolution instead of simply savouring the genius inherent in the modern fairytale adaptation. In particular, the work drifts into a strange artistic mode when the plot increasingly takes place in the visual style of PROMARE and contrasts with classic anime imagery.

Not to be forgotten, however, is the excellent examination of the protagonist’s inner fear, personal pain and apparent loneliness, which is fantastically worked out and characterised by the fact that the main character exists far from any perfection, exhibits weaknesses and seems downright helpless. This makes the character an approachable person that we all know from our lives. The discrepancy between the digital TikTok world and reality is subtly worked out and is not only shown in the faceless characters, superficial secondary characters and choppy storylines, but also in the fact that supposedly silent cries for help can be heard and hopelessness can also turn into cohesion, helpfulness and humanity. Despite the visual spectacle, however, the work lacks a certain coherence and loses its audience enormously, especially in the middle section. The various meta-levels are present on all sides, but are sometimes somewhat drowned out by the mania for perfection.

Conclusion

The potential is huge, and director Hosoda has shown countless times that he knows how to develop profound films. In BELLE, he develops an impressive world that addresses problems of modern society and presents them in a frightening light, but at the same time stirs up hope. Instead of focusing on this already very comprehensive theme, however, Hosoda increasingly drifts into other worlds and even larger fields of content, which make the whole work seem overloaded. Less is sometimes more, and this time Hosoda has unfortunately overreached himself far too much. A viewing of the film is definitely worthwhile, but expectations should not be stacked too high and the apt characterisation as Beauty and the Beast in times of TikTok should only be considered superficially.

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