Forum - View topicREVIEW: Belle
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Neko-sensei
Posts: 285 |
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No critique aimed at you intended—I was responding to others who specified they'd seen the dub, not to your excellently-reasoned post. Of course I fully agree that treating any film as an unimpeachable masterpiece wrecks the fun of cinema! I think if you love something, you owe it to yourself to educate yourself about that thing and to be realistic about its flaws. As I said, there are plenty of places to poke holes in Belle's narrative, but I don't think it has the massive structural issues of Summer Wars or the disastrous The Boy and the Beast—or even the more minor ones of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. To respond to your post specifically, the late introduction of Dragon is only a flaw if you place the relationship between Suzu and Dragon at "the heart of the movie." I don't read the film that way at all, though; I see the relationship between Suzu and her mother as the heart of the film—the "subject" of the statement the movie is making—and Dragon as the "object" upon which that relationship acts. Viewed this way, the first act of the film is about Suzu gaining the ability to relate with the world again; the second act introduces a wrinkle in the form of Dragon and forces Suzu to learn how to use that ability; and the third-act climax features Suzu's confrontation with herself, sacrifice for others, and "confirmation" of her status as a changed character. It's a classic three-act character study, so long as you view Dragon as a secondary rather than a primary character. Read this way, Belle was betrayed by its own marketing in the same way as Mirai (not quite as hideously, though—Mirai's advertising in Japan promoted a film that doesn't exist). It's reasonable for an audience to be disappointed that they didn't get a Beauty and the Beast deconstruction when the title and previews so clearly promised a goshdarned Beauty and the Beast deconstruction. I'd also note that there's room for a hearty critique centered around Dragon's status as object rather than subject: although he has an inner life, it's purely secondary to Suzu's own; we feel sympathy for Suzu, but only compassion for Dragon. Furthermore I entirely agree with you that the secondary cast doesn't really earn its keep (despite the fact that the train station scene is by far the best cut in the film)! But I really believe that the timing of Dragon's introduction is in the service of the film's quite conventional structure, not a case of misplaced priorities. |
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wolf10
 Posts: 908 |
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I guess I should state clearly that I don't think the focus on Suzu's relationship with her mother is one of the film's weaknesses. The loss of the mother damages her relationship with the world around her (most clearly illustrated in her relationship with her father), but her relationship with the Dragon is what catalyzes her recovery. That's what I mean when I say it's the "heart."
I think there were ways to introduce the Dragon sooner, since literally nobody in the theaters isn't aware of his character or supposed importance to the narrative. I believe their meeting is an appropriately timed turning point to move into the second act, but giving him even a single scene during the first act would establish him through visual presentation rather than exposition after the fact, and give the audience a reason to want Belle to track down this dangerous individual besides advance knowledge of the plot. Peggy Sue was given this treatment, and it paid off very well in the end. It's been a minute, but I'm pretty sure King Kazma was fairly prominent in the intro to Summer Wars, even though his importance wasn't established at the time. (Can we also stop to appreciate that spoiler[Kei is basically an edgier version of Kazuma? Hosoda loves his grumpy gamer boys.]) Even though Pixar's Coco only focused on the titular Coco in the last ten minutes, we're still introduced to her in the first few minutes of the film. |
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Neko-sensei
Posts: 285 |
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You're absolutely right. As you point out, Hosoda introduced King Kazma early on in Summer Wars, and in this film he does the same thing with Peggy Sue—not to mention the Five Voices, who are introduced right in the opening narration! However, the fact that Hosoda's does go this route with other characters suggests to me that his decision not to introduce Dragon in the first act is a deliberate one. In fact, I'd argue that it's necessary to the structure of the film I outlined above that the first act be solely about Suzu's journey into music and into the virtual world. As I read the film, the catalyst (that is, the initial impetus) for Suzu's recovery is not her relationship with Dragon, but her recovery of music in the world of "U". In the first act, Suzu believes that she can possess the joyful things she inherited from her mother (her musical gifts) without addressing her more painful inheritance (the self-sacrificial drive to save others). Her initial wild success seems to bear out this belief, and in the cocoon-like, darkened shell of the concert hall that encloses the first-act climax she almost loses herself in the false comfort of a purely joyful melody, untouched by pain. Then, BAM! In a blaze of light, Beast smashes in from out of nowhere to show her that other people feel pain, loneliness, and desperation as well. The unexpectedness of Beast's intrusion is the very thing that makes it effective; Suzu herself doesn't understand why she's drawn to save him, and since the audience's perspective aligns with Suzu we share her own bewilderment at this inexplicable, self-destructive drive. In terms of story logic, it would not have made sense for Suzu to be aware of Beast in the first act, before his initial appearance, since she has paid attention only to the musical aspects of the virtual world; she never really registered that there was any fighting. Saving Beast's introduction for the second act also reinforces his status not as the catalyst for Suzu's recovery, but rather the agent upon whom her recovery is acting—the presence of which boils away the comforting illusions to reveal Suzu's true maternal inheritance. Now, this is purely personal preference, but I don't really buy the Hollywood screenwriting rule that all characters must have clear motivation at all times; I quite like the Hamlet school of storytelling in which the audience is forced to guess along with protagonists who don't quite understand their own actions. In this case, however, Suzu's motivations may be clearer to the audience than to herself, since we vividly remember her mother even as Suzu is trying to forget her in the comfort of "U". Thus I don't think that we as the audience lack a motivation to want Suzu to uncover the true nature of the Beast, and in so doing, reveal her own true nature as well. Of course, simply because I'm arguing that Hosoda's decision was deliberate and serves his purpose well doesn't mean that the movie couldn't have worked without an earlier introduction to Dragon; in fact, I'm sure that there's some alternate reality in which Hosoda went that way, and who knows but that he produced an even better movie! I think again that the huge problem in our reality is the marketing, which focuses heavily on Beast and seems to promote that hypothetical alternate-reality "dual protagonist" version of the film rather than the one Hosoda actually set out to make. It's always a disappointment to me when a film, through no fault of its own, can't give audiences what they want because they've been primed to expect something else. |
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chrisb
 Subscriber Posts: 621 Location: USA |
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LOL my friends and I joked about that character’s weird priorities.spoiler[ “Yeah, that high key sucks but did you hear that sweet music playing? =D”] I think it was just overshadowed by the flawed logic displayed by the other characters. |
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Errinundra
Moderator
 Posts: 6536 Location: Melbourne, Oz |
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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has done an online review of Belle here.
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zrdb
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Saw this on Saturday and while is was an entertaining film I can't give it a very high rating. It recycles too many things Hosada has used in his other films, it shows no innovation or originality for the most part. I'd give it a 6 1/2 out of 10 points and even then I'm being generous. I'd much prefer to watch a film from Makoto Shinkai.
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omiya
 Posts: 1834 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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I thought it was a quite fair review (watched the subtitled version on 25th January 2022 at a local cinema with one friend and 3 others in the auditorium). |
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Gurren Rodan
 Posts: 263 |
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I suppose it's possible some people are just wired that way - one is just so attuned to certain things they can't help noticing them - but I agree that the general world logic of this sequence comes across as silly, and it's one of the most distracting parts of the film. I think spoiler[framing the climax as a race against time to rescue the boys was a mistake, and introduced too much extraneous content to lead to the meeting. The confrontation with the father was important, but I think it could have been accomplished a little more efficiently.] |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23888 |
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Saw this Tuesday night in a theatre. To give a bit of context before I say anything, Wolf Children is my favourite Hosada film, while Summer Wars and especially The Boy and the Beast are my least (haven't seen Mirai yet, but will, of course).
Here's my one word review: meh. There was not a single element: story, characters, visuals, music, etc. that really stood out for me. Wasn't awful but I just sat in my seat thinking, "uh, okay." I really think co-opting the Beauty and the Beast story was a big mistake... it just doesn't mesh with this story of a girl trying to overcome grief and a boy trying to overcome abuse. Beauty and the Beast is a romance and this story isn't. It's a little bizarre. I would have loved to experience a big emotional uplift at the end, but the resolution didn't feel earned to me. I kind of hope Hosada goes back to working with writers and not direct his own material (keep in mind I haven't seen Mirai.) |
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ThrowMeOut
Posts: 260 |
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This is a movie whose script could've used a bit more time baking in the oven. I spent the whole time being utterly baffled as the plot bounced around without any decent connective tissue between the scenes. OK she's puking for some reason, ok now she's in the VR. Why did she just start singing? Wait now she's a famous international singer? Hah? Slow down! Now we've wasted 15 minutes on canoe guy. Maybe he's important to the plot? Whoops, no he's not.
It feels like Mamoru Hosoda just smashed this out in one draft, got zero feedback on it, and sent it straight into production. All the pieces are there for an intriguing story but it just doesn't mesh, and has some serious leaps of logic. Such as the ending where spoiler[a bunch of grown-ass adults sent a teenage girl to take on a violent man alone, and then she defeated domestic abuse by... glaring a bit.] What??? I was holding my head by the end, utterly baffled at how incompetent it all was. This was by a famous, successful director with some big hits under his belt but it felt like this was written by a teenager. |
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