Belle will release in theaters on Friday, January 14, and exclusive Imax previews have begun today in select markets. A modern-day reimagining of the French fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, the anime film has received worldwide praise for its gorgeous visuals and emotional story. The latest film from Studio Chizu is helmed by director Mamoru Hosoda (Mirai, Wolf Children).
ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to Belle director Mamoru Hosoda about the anime film’s themes of social media, loneliness, and what it means to be beautiful.
Tyler Treese: Belle is absolutely gorgeous and so colorful. You majored in oil painting in college. How have your roots in oil painting really helped inform your film career and sense of style?
Mamoru Hosoda: So, if you look at my films, you may think that the touches are not quite like the oil painting, but I did study Western art history and I did study how our aesthetics are kind of created or built. So in that sense, it definitely helps me as a filmmaker.
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There are a lot of similarities to the French fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast. What stood out to you about that story that made you want to update it and sort of pivot away from making a standard love story?
So the key thing about this film is the Beast’s duality having two sides. He has this violent side as well as a gentle-hearted side. Also, the internet has two sides: you as a real person, and you can have an alter ego online. You can have your avatar. So I thought just depicting this internet [and] incorporating that into the story would be able to really portray today’s world. The Beauty and the Beast story goes back to 18th century France. So back then it was all about romance. It’s a love story, and when it comes to the character for the beauty, she’s just a beautiful being, and she marries Prince Charming at the end. It was happily ever after.
That was kind of depicted as a beauty of it, but in today’s world, I thought about what is the definition of beauty. It’s someone that can help other people like Suzu does in the film. I see that as today’s beauty or the beauty standard. So, I think that worked really well, that concept really worked [for] Belle to be an updated version of Beauty and the Beast.
As you mentioned, people put on a persona when they’re in VR or on the internet and trying to escape real life. Can you speak to that theme of loneliness and your thoughts on how people are using all this new technology to kind of getaway?
Social media, for example, claims it is something that connects people around the world, but in reality, people are feeling more lonely than ever before. Their self-esteem is kind of getting low and it’s ironic that it’s kind of going the opposite direction. I think the reason is that the internet world is still not complete. It’s still a work in progress, it’s constantly evolving, and I think it should keep changing.
Before, when we didn’t have the internet, you only had one world to live in. You felt that you were very confined and limited, didn’t have much freedom. So in today’s world, I mean especially young people, it’s almost a norm to have both the reality and this internet world, which is another reality. It’s very important that people look at the internet, not only as a tool but also as a place where you can have a different life and your alter ego.
