Why I Didn t Love Belle

Mamoru Hosoda is one of my favourite anime film directors to date. His films always tackle an aspect of human connection with simplicity, grace and beauty. In Summer Wars, he explored the strong bond between family through an extended cast. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time taught us the fleeting nature of youth and that we should make the most out of the time we have. Wolf Children showed us the unbreakable bond a mother has with their children, while also telling a touching coming of age story about identity. Boy and the Beast was a fairy tale like story about fatherhood and Mirai explored the many facets of sibling relationships through the magical realism of shared memories. While not all of his works may have had a deep impact on me personally, there's a strong and sincere message to be found in all of them. His stories aren't grand or epic in scale as you would normally find in a Studio Ghibli film. His style is much more grounded and set in reality, giving way to more personal journeys for his characters. It's no wonder then why in each and every one of his films, people are able to connect on a deep and empathetic level. For me, that was Wolf Children and it'll always hold a special place in my heart. His two films after that didn't hit me the same way, but I could still appreciate the messages and craftsmanship behind them. So when I went into the cinemas to see Bell, I wanted so desperately to feel the same magic that I did for his earlier works. By no means do I think that Hosoda is a bad filmmaker or that he's even made any bad films, he hasn't. Ever since I watched the Digimon movie and cried to it when I was just 8 years old, I always felt that there was an aspect to his works that spoke to the heart. When I watched Wolf Children for the first time, I thought, this is it. This is going to be my favorite film of all time. It had so many touching and emotional moments that felt like it was a celebration of life, both the good and the bad. For many years, it was my favorite film of all time and it only got dethroned because another film spoke to me even harder than that. I believe films that cut deep into your soul and uncover a personal truth that you didn't know about yourself will always be more important than films that are technically great in every aspect but don't resonate with you. Hosoda's filmography is exactly that. No matter what people will say or criticize from his works, if they impact you emotionally then that's all that really matters. But as you could already tell from the title of this video, Bell was not that film for me. Some of you may be angry that I didn't love a critically acclaimed film that got a 14 minute standing ovation at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Or some might want to feel validated because they express the same views that I do. Whatever it is, you're here because you want me to explain why I didn't love Bell. And believe me when I say, I wish I could have loved it. I wish the problems of the film didn't take me out of the experience so that I could just feel everything Hosoda was trying to convey. I wish I could have made a much more positive video about the film and sing it's beloved praises. But that's not the reality of what happened. Bell begins with the introduction of Hosoda's metaverse, You. Paying homage to his film Summer Wars and even Digimon at times. The digital world the film is set in is clearly identical to the one in Summer Wars and you can tell that Hosoda has a very clear aesthetic of the world he's trying to build. It's vibrant, colourful and feels so expansive in nature. However to me, that's all there is to it. The majority of the film is set in this metaverse but I never once got the sense that this was the next step in the internet's evolution. The setting doesn't expand beyond its surface level foundation. It's a place that exists but doesn't feel interconnected with anything else. There are elements to it that are interesting such as the biometric scan which develops a personalised and unique avatar based on your DNA and mental wellbeing. It's a concept that sounds interesting as it's implied that your inner self would be shown through a fitting online avatar. And this is even explored through some characters such as Bell herself, the beast and a bratty baby who turns out to be a lonely woman. But other than that, the metaverse was lacking a lot of much needed world building. To me, it only felt like a place where you could sing, fight and have twitter arguments. There wasn't anything else much besides that. And if your argument is that it doesn't need any world building because it's a movie that is closer to a children's fairy tale as it pays homage to Disney's Beauty and the Beast, I point you towards a children's movie that does have great world building, Pixar's Inside Out. That film takes place in 2 different settings, much like Bell. The first is reality and the other is inside Riley's mind. It plays with the simple idea that emotions are the drivers of human behaviour, but explores the setting with so much attention to detail that an adult could appreciate. So why can't Yu's Metaverse also be detailed like this? I'm not even saying that you have to match the level of world building as seen in Inside Out, but if a shorter film can have little details that enrich the setting it's in, I don't see why Bell couldn't be written in a way that has more world mechanics and details put into it's metaverse. Not only would Yu's setting be more realised, it would create an already colourful world into an even more immersive one. Suzu is a young high school girl who lives by the countryside with her dad. Everything looks and seems fairly normal at first, however through the use of subtle shots and zoom ins, we can see the quiet loneliness that Suzu is slowly engulfed in. And with the focus of a picture on top of a kitchen counter, who is presumably her mum, the implied message of the scene is subtly conveyed. Suzu's mum is no longer here, and without the presence of a warm and compassionate parent, Suzu feels incredibly lonely. It's moments like this where Hosoda's directing shines the brightest. He has always been incredible when conveying familial bonds, as we don't need words or dialogue to convey the heavy emotion Suzu is currently feeling. Everything you need to feel is conveyed through his brilliant cinematography. From her walking down the mountains of her house, to the bus stop and then to the long and sombre train ride, you can feel how lonely Suzu is. While a lot of other films or series would rely on inner dialogue to set the tone and atmosphere, Hosoda understands the importance of show don't tell. Suzu is one of the most endearing characters Hosoda has written into a lead role. She's deeply melancholic, quiet and suffers from depression because of her mother's passing. You can tell that her mum was someone who meant the entire world to her, so who could blame her for feeling this way. Losing someone important to you is devastating, especially a I don't even want to begin to imagine what it's like. But Suzu to me feels as if she has no one who can truly understand and empathise with what she's going through. Suzu feels absolutely alone in this world and nothing could change that. When she reminisces about her mother, we're shown an absolutely touching and heartbreaking montage that shows how much of a caring mother she had, but also juxtaposes her personality when she was little. This is Hosoda's signature style of storytelling, as he's done it in the past, most notably with Wolf Children, and it absolutely delivers the emotional gut punch you're meant to feel. Hosoda is an absolute master when it comes to telling personal stories like this, the emotional and cathartic weight behind these moments cannot be understated. While being at her lowest, Suzu is invited by her classmate to join the world of You and so her online avatar, Belle, is now born. When she enters into the digital world for the first time, she's able to sing with all her heart, something she was unable to do in real life. The performance that she gives is so heartbreakingly touching, you can feel the genuine heart and soul poured into her vocals, it's something that she needs to let out. The song itself is about overcoming grief and it was a stunning experience having seen that in the cinema. At this point in the film, I was so excited to see where Suzu's character was going to develop later on. Suzu using Belle as a vehicle for letting out her pent up grief and trauma through emotional songs and performances, was something that I thought was brilliant. This was going to explore the many facets of her character and the songs that she performs as Belle was going to elevate it even more so. However, sadly as it turns out, this was the peak of the film for me as the story goes in a completely different direction. Now from here on, I'm going into major spoilers of the film, so if you haven't seen it, you can skip ahead to this timestamp right here. If you don't care about spoilers, then let's continue. Waking up the next day, Belle becomes an overnight sensation with hordes of fans who love her and some who think that she's superficial. There's a critique about social media that the film touches upon which I thought was interesting and it's pretty self-aware. Once you become popular enough in the online space, people will unfairly judge you as a person based on nothing more than surface level details. It's something that just comes with the territory. It's impossible to please everyone, but under all the foolish comments, your true fans will understand what you're trying to say. It's at this point in the film where it introduces the character of the beast through an action scene which interrupts Belle's performance. And it was at this moment where I started feeling a bit confused and conflicted. Belle, for no apparent reason, becomes heavily interested in the character of the beast simply because he's mysterious. And the plot then takes a weird turn where it suddenly shifts focus to revealing the identity of the beast. I was so confused and off-put by the decision that Hosoda made here. The heavy emotions that Suzu was feeling beforehand was suddenly casted away in favour of inserting a Beauty and the Beast storyline that feels so out of place. What happened to Suzu overcoming the trauma and grief of her mother, it's just forgotten about. Belle, for whatever reason, becomes completely infatuated in learning more about who the person behind the beast is. They don't have any chemistry together and the beast for the most part is just a rude, constantly angry dude who just wants to be left alone. However, Belle just keeps prodding because I guess the script demands it. It's just such a weird decision for Belle to be constantly thinking about the beast, even in her real life, when she has literally no connection or interaction with him. While all of this is going on, Hosoda also introduces the villains of the film which I can only describe as the police enforcers of the internet. They're basically just online SJW's corrupt with power and dressed like power rangers. It's honestly so baffling why there's even a villain at all in this film, but the worst part is that there's unironically an evil villain monologue which just feels like a parody in and of itself. But it's taken so seriously by the characters that I'm truly left confused at the narrative decisions here as it feels like Hosoda has so many different unused ideas from his previous films that he just incorporated into Belle. It feels convoluted, disjointed, with no rhyme or reason why the story should have even progressed this way. By the time the next musical performance arrives, everything just feels so out of place. The performance itself is of course beautiful and I have nothing but good words to say for it, but all I could think of when it was happening was, why does Belle care so much about the beast to learn more about him? It's like her character was written this way so that the story could progress and not because it was a natural progression of Belle's character. The next time that Suzu enters you, the power rangers have found the secret hideout of the beast and are preparing to burn it all down. It also seems like the whole internet is trying to unmask the true identity of the beast because they think he's a bad person. But of course that wouldn't be the case due to the old Disney fairy tale of never judging a book by its cover. Through Suzu's instinctual connection with the beast, she's able to uncover his real life identity. There really isn't another way to put it, she just looks at a couple of brothers over the internet and somehow knows that one of them is the beast. Yes one of them was humming the song that Belle had performed, but the way she found them was a bit too convenient if you ask me. Anyway, it turns out that the beast is actually just a child with an abusive father. This then recontextualizes why his online persona of the beast was always so alone and angry. He was in severe pain due to the beatings that his father would do to him and it felt like there was no escape from this abusive relationship. Now there's a potential idea here that the film could have focused on and I feel would have been so much more interesting than what actually happened. There's a message to be found about why Belle and the beast use online avatars because they are running from the trauma of their real life. Belle sings emotional songs to cope with a personal loss, while the beast fights others because he is powerless to do anything in his real life. If the film put more emphasis on this parallel there could have been a much more compelling narrative than what we got. Suzu just wants to help the two children, but they don't trust her. And so her childhood friend comes up with a plan for Suzu to sing as herself in order to gain the trust of the two children. The final performance is grand in scale and you can definitely feel the emotional weight behind it. It's beautiful, magical and is a reminder that this film has the heart and soul behind it, even if it stumbles at a lot of different places. After the stunning performance that Suzu gave, with the message that you don't need to hide under an avatar to be yourself, she gains the trust of the two children. However, before they are able to give their address, their father cuts them off. The next moment that precedes this is honestly a bit silly, lazy and convenient writing. Through some insane detective work by some high schoolers, they are able to locate the approximate location of the children. Suzu takes a bus towards their city, runs around in the rain for a bit and somehow finds them I guess. I can't be the only one who thought that this was too unrealistic in an otherwise grounded story. It took me out of the experience and felt like this happens because it was written in the script and not because it felt natural. Suzu stands up against the boy's abusive father and he chickens out from hitting her. The final message of the film is that people use online avatars to cope with the struggles of their real life through connecting and empathising with others. But if you can apply that empathy in your real life, you are able to change someone's life for the better. The film ends and I'm left feeling so conflicted on what I just watched. Okay, let me get this out of the way. All of Hosoda's films are gorgeously animated by Studio Chizu, which bring a more grounded and realistic look to all the real life places in the film. His character designs of people are closer to real life than they are anime characters and this lets you more easily immerse yourself into the world of his films. All the real life locations in this film look beautiful and there's a somber atmosphere to be found when Suzu just walks around her town. I'm usually not a fan of 3D animation in anime as when it's used, it typically looks jank and out of place. However, I think Bell's use of 3D animation in the metaverse scenes weren't off-putting and actually looked kind of beautiful in a lot of places, especially during the performances. It also makes a lot of sense for the online avatars to be 3D as their designs bring out all of colour and personality in the metaverse. In terms of actual animation quality, this is one of Hosoda's more gorgeous films to look at and I don't really have anything negative to say about it. However, the same cannot be said about its story as I think Bell is one of the messiest that Hosoda has made so far. The film tries to juggle and insert way too many messages and ideas that it becomes convoluted and messy in what it's trying to say. At the beginning, it's about a young girl overcoming her personal trauma and grief, yet midway through it completely forgets about that and becomes an homage to Beauty and the Beast and feels so out of place. The musical performances are easily the best part of the film as it truly feels like a powerful outpour of emotions which is why I'm left conflicted. Because behind all of the issues I have with the film, underneath the weird narrative choices, is a story that I think could have potentially been really compelling about overcoming past trauma and grief through music. I can understand why some people will really like this film if the emotional beats hit the right spot. But for me, Bell is a film that I really, really wanted to love but couldn't. And I can only hope that Hosoda's next film will live up to my expectations of him. If you want to know why Wolf Children is my favourite work from Hosoda, then why don't you check out this video right here or maybe just another video from my channel. I promise that I'm usually not this negative. Anyway, comment down below your thoughts on Bell if you've seen it, subscribe. It's been Kevin and I'll see you all next time.