The Red Turtle is an upcoming French-Japanese animated film directed by Michaël Dudok de Wit. It tells the story of a man who tries to escape from a desert island and battles a giant turtle. The film is without dialogue. It is the director's first feature film.
The film was produced by Why Not Productions and Wild Bunch in association with Studio Ghibli. According to Vincent Maraval, head of Wild Bunch, he visited Studio Ghibli in Japan in 2008 and met with Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki showed him the short film Father and Daughter and asked him to find its director, Michaël Dudok de Wit, with the prospect of co-producing a feature film. Wild Bunch approached Dudok de Wit in London and convinced him to take on the project. The screenplay was written by Dudok de Wit and Pascale Ferran.
A truly wonderful 80 minutes of boundary-less cinema that certainly leaves the audience affected by its honest, though marvellous storytelling whichll have you in tears by the time that the credits start to roll. Quite simply, one of the best weve seen at the festival, and a cert for awards plaudits over the coming months.
The success of "The Red Turtle" marks a well-timed victory for Studio Ghibli at a transitional moment: It has reached completion not long after the concluding output of its two biggest names, Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. While not aping the style of those long-established masters, "The Red Turtle" displays a similar attentiveness to making profound gestures without an iota of overstatement. With hardly more than a handful of shouts and grunts, "The Red Turtle" elicits powerful ideas about the struggle for contentment at every turn. Words are never enough, but "The Red Turtle" finds a way to rise above them.
De Wit excels at producing compelling drama from such extreme self-imposed limitations. Indeed, despite there being no dialogue and very few characters, the film consistently celebrates the excitement of exploration and invention while also keeping the audience aware of the mans growing frustrations, like the awful finality of falling down whens theres no rope or ladder or hand to help you up.
While The Red Turtle is Dudok de Wit's feature debut, he has a wonderful background of animated shorts including the César-winning 1996 short The Monk and the Fish and the Oscar-winning 2001 short Father and Daughter. It will be fascinating to see if he turns to a feature with dialog as his next challenge. Considering The Red Turtle was a nine-year journey, there might be a bit of a wait. In the meantime, audiences will soon get to experience the masterpiece that is The Red Turtle over and over. Just one tip: don't forget to bring your tissues.
The Red Turtle is a fable so simple, so pure, it feels as if it has existed for hundreds of years, like a brilliant shard of sea glass rendered smooth and elegant through generations of retelling. The product of a unique collaboration between Studio Ghibli and Dutch-born, London-based animator Dudok de Wit, this tiny artistic treasure might as well be the adaptation of a little-known Hans Christian Andersen classic, or else perhaps that of a folk tale brought back from some remote South Pacific island.
De Wit excels at producing compelling drama from such extreme self-imposed limitations. Indeed, despite there being no dialogue and very few characters, the film consistently celebrates the excitement of exploration and invention while also keeping the audience aware of the mans growing frustrations
Thanks for making this thread. Will keep a close eye on the movie, it looks amazing. Need to wait out a blu-ray release as well though, odds of this showing in a cinema close by are slim.
Yeah Zootopia pretty much has this in the bag, I give it a 95% chance of winning, and I feel like that's pretty conservative on my end. Not that it's a bad film or anything and it wouldn't kill me to see it win the Oscar.
What sucks is Disney/Pixar have won so consistently the past few years when equally good or better films are ignored. It's frustrating for sure, but what more can you do.
The Oscars are a farce when it comes to animation. Zootopia or Finding Dory will win regardless. If there was some big timely political statement to be made by Moana that might also have had a shot if the other two weren't around.
Shaun the Sheep Movie and Anomalisa were nominated last year, both were better than Inside Out. Inside Out won. Similarly The Red Turtle won't beat Disney/Pixar at the Oscars.
The Oscars are a farce when it comes to animation. Zootopia or Finding Dory will win regardless. If there was some big timely political statement to be made by Moana that might also have had a shot if the other two weren't around.
Seems like the animation branch of the Academy has diverse tastes which results in inspired nominations (ex. When Marnie Was There over a mainstream choice like Peanuts movie or The Good Dinosaur), but, then, when it comes to voting on winners, the whole Academy votes, and a lot of the general voters don't take animation as seriously, unfortunately, and just ask their kids what they liked the most. In which case, the blockbuster just wins most of the time.
co-production means at least that they are doing something.
man I cried my heart out when I heard Yonebayashi left the company. Now goro is the only hope (and a possible miyazaki hayao come back). At least Goro got better with poppy hill
co-production means at least that they are doing something.
man I cried my heart out when I heard Yonebayashi left the company. Now goro is the only hope (and a possible miyazaki hayao come back). At least Goro got better with poppy hill
It's a work of beauty; the underwater swimming sequences have the fluidity of ballet, and it is continuously eye-catching, with a simple story line that should easily cross borders. Dont be surprised if it winds up nominated for the best animated film Oscar, up against a few Hollywood blockbusters.
The hugeness of this inquiry is hidden by the simplicity of the presentation. This doesn't look like any other Ghibli film. The characters' eyes have more in common with Herges Tintin than with the expressive saucers of Miyazakis heroines.
The film is a masterclass in chiaroscuro: shadows are just as intricately sketched as the life forms that cause them. Even from a distance, a bottle washed up on the beach has a lighter shadow than a human's.
There doesn't seem to be a thread for impressions on the movie, so I'll post mine here.
I saw it two weeks ago. Where do I start?
On the plus side:
- the animation is great
- the skies look great
- the beginning of the movie - basically, everything before the man encounters the red turtle - is surprisingly interesting. There is nothing special about it, it's just well-executed. To me, the best scene in the entire movie is
when the man falls into the water, between some big rocks, with seemingly no way to escape. Very tense, and it shows that life is a delicate thing, that being stranded on an island is really not a joke and you could die at any moment
.
- I like that we see
their son grow up into an adult. For some reason I was expecting the movie to only show him as a kid because kids are cute or something.
On the negative side? Well, pretty much everything else:
- Perhaps the biggest flaw is that there is no character development because there are no characters. Since none of the characters speak, you would expect the visuals and the scenes to help show the character's personalities and emotional journey. But you get barely any of that. The movie didn't make me care about any of these people. In that sense it feels weirdly... I don't know, autistic - in the stereotypical sense? I wish I could find a better word as I don't mean to insult autists, but that's all that springs to mind right now. The fact that there is barely any wildlife only enhances that feeling.
- There is no story, no plot to speak of. Well, I guess there is one, but it's threadbare at best, and it falls apart from
the death of the turtle
. There is no conflict between the characters, no strong emotions on either side, no real obstacle to overcome and from which to take a lesson or grow as characters.
What does the tsunami achieve, exactly? Sure, it destroys everything, and the characters are apart from each other for a bit and the woman is hurt or something... But what was the ultimate point of it? Also, what's the point of the bottle? If that's a symbol of civilization and a reason why the son wants to leave and explore the world, then it could have been fleshed out a little. No message in it, no backstory, no nothing.
- The character of the turtle doesn't make any sense at all, and as a result of that + the lack of plot, the seemingly allegoric nature of the story is completely lost on the viewer.
Why is she acting so shy when she turns into a woman and is naked? Why is she waiting for the man to give her his shirt? It's not like she knows civilization and what it means to be naked or dressed, so why would she care? Why does she forgive him so easily for murdering her as a turtle? Heck, why is the consequence of her death her transformation into a woman who just gives her love to the guy? Why did she keep destroying his boat in the first place?
All in all, everything about is very conventional, very safe, very expected, apart from the choice of having no dialogue. And there is no doubt you can tell a compelling story with interesting characters without the use of dialogue, but this movie fails at that. If this is the extent of the director's ability to do tell a story visually (or to tell a story, period), then I wish the movie had dialogue. He could have used it as a crutch at least. As it stands, while I'm sure I could find other things to gripe about, all I can ask is: "What is the point?" Cause I sure couldn't see it.
There doesn't seem to be a thread for impressions on the movie, so I'll post mine here.
I saw it two weeks ago. Where do I start?
On the plus side:
- the animation is great
- the skies look great
- the beginning of the movie - basically, everything before the man encounters the red turtle - is surprisingly interesting. There is nothing special about it, it's just well-executed. To me, the best scene in the entire movie is
when the man falls into the water, between some big rocks, with seemingly no way to escape. Very tense, and it shows that life is a delicate thing, that being stranded on an island is really not a joke and you could die at any moment
.
- I like that we see
their son grow up into an adult. For some reason I was expecting the movie to only show him as a kid because kids are cute or something.
On the negative side? Well, pretty much everything else:
- Perhaps the biggest flaw is that there is no character development because there are no characters. Since none of the characters speak, you would expect the visuals and the scenes to help show the character's personalities and emotional journey. But you get barely any of that. The movie didn't make me care about any of these people. In that sense it feels weirdly... I don't know, autistic - in the stereotypical sense? I wish I could find a better word as I don't mean to insult autists, but that's all that springs to mind right now. The fact that there is barely any wildlife only enhances that feeling.
- There is no story, no plot to speak of. Well, I guess there is one, but it's threadbare at best, and it falls apart from
the death of the turtle
. There is no conflict between the characters, no strong emotions on either side, no real obstacle to overcome and from which to take a lesson or grow as characters.
What does the tsunami achieve, exactly? Sure, it destroys everything, and the characters are apart from each other for a bit and the woman is hurt or something... But what was the ultimate point of it? Also, what's the point of the bottle? If that's a symbol of civilization and a reason why the son wants to leave and explore the world, then it could have been fleshed out a little. No message in it, no backstory, no nothing.
- The character of the turtle doesn't make any sense at all, and as a result of that + the lack of plot, the seemingly allegoric nature of the story is completely lost on the viewer.
Why is she acting so shy when she turns into a woman and is naked? Why is she waiting for the man to give her his shirt? It's not like she knows civilization and what it means to be naked or dressed, so why would she care? Why does she forgive him so easily for murdering her as a turtle? Heck, why is the consequence of her death her transformation into a woman who just gives her love to the guy? Why did she keep destroying his boat in the first place?
All in all, everything about is very conventional, very safe, very expected, apart from the choice of having no dialogue. And there is no doubt you can tell a compelling story with interesting characters without the use of dialogue, but this movie fails at that. If this is the extent of the director's ability to do tell a story visually (or to tell a story, period), then I wish the movie had dialogue. He could have used it as a crutch at least. As it stands, while I'm sure I could find other things to gripe about, all I can ask is: "What is the point?" Cause I sure couldn't see it. And
Just saw this today at a film festival so I figured I might as well bump this thread as I'm curious if any more people have seen it too apart from the above.
So on the plus side, this is definitely one of the best hand-drawn animated films I've seen out there in a long time. Even with the limited locale, the art and animation is breathtaking, especially when it came to the weather. That said, I was rather let down because it was remarkably pedestrian in terms of narrative and emotional payoff. I have no doubt there's a lot of symbolical/thematic shenanigans going on that probably necessitate a second viewing, but I still felt a little empty by the end.
That was brilliant! Stunningly animated and surreal life journey.
The director was there for a Q&A at LFF, explained how it was Ghibli pitching to him. I didn't know Takahata doesn't draw at all. Definitely shares his bittersweet vibe. Michael is a cool dude.
