Trevor Hogg ventures into the various worlds of Belle guided by Mamoru Hosoda and his creative team…

Jin Kim reinterpreted the freckles of Suzu as a cartoon facial tattoo on her avatar Belle

E xploring how technology has impacted society is an ongoing theme for Japanese filmmaker Mamoru Hosoda in the Digimon franchise, Summer Wars and Belle, which retells the fairy tale of Beauty And The Beast within a virtual environment called U. Hosoda recognises that the digital realm is a tool that can be constructive or destructive depending on how it is used. “A lot of what we have in our reality, like the toxicity and fake news, has made its way into the internet, which has become much more of a one-to-one representation and is why a lot of movies I feel show the internet in a dystopian type of light. There is a resistance to anything that is too new because adults feel whatever establishment that they have or partaking in is going to be somehow destroyed by this innovation. But for me,

“I WANT TO SHOW THE INTERNET IN A MUCH MORE POSITIVE LIGHT SO THE YOUNGER GENERATIONS CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT”

Mamoru Hosoda, Director, Belle

I want to show the internet in a much more positive light so that the younger generations can take advantage of it to progress something of themselves.”

Withdrawn high school student Suzu Naito is still grieving the childhood death of her mother and rediscovers the ability to sing when introduced to a social media platform populated by user avatars. The story takes place in both the real and virtual worlds which is reflected in the various animation styles by Studio Chizu, Digital Frontier and Cartoon Saloon. “A long time ago I was asked in an interview, ‘The world seems to be transitioning towards using full CG in their animation, and why aren’t you?’ For me, the 2D versus 3D discussion is nonsense because it’s simply a method of expression. As long as you can make a fun and engaging movie, whatever method you’ve chosen is the right one. This time with Belle, the real world was expressed using 2D hand-drawn animation [by Studio Chizu] and the digital cyber world inside of U was created using CG [by Digital Frontier]. It made a lot of sense for us to use both methods in this movie. I wanted to work with Cartoon Saloon and felt that this labyrinth that Belle has to go through to ultimately end up at her destination was a great way for us to work together. In Japan we have skewed to the realistic side of visual expression, so that more abstract type of interpretation of what the world could look like is something we have lost.”