Not only a touching, futuristic-spin on the classic Beauty & the Beast fairy tale but also a coming-of-age story from the perspective of adolescents still recovering from loss.

BELLE is a Japanese animated science-fiction film created by Studio Chizu and directed by Mamoru Hosoda. It premiered July 17th at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival where it received a fourteen-minute standing ovation.

Synopsis

A sad, rural-village girl joins a massive virtual world where she becomes a globally famous singer who uses her voice to uplift not just herself but others as well.

What Did I Think?

First off, I want to start by saying I saw someone post a trailer for this movie here on Hive Blog which got me curious about it.

(The above picture is the sad rural-village girl's titular online avatar, Belle, in the massive virtual world she joins)
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I'm not the biggest fan of CGI, especially Disney's new CGI movies which they make in place of the traditional 2D-animation, but BELLE was a beautiful combo of both. Usually CGI in anime has a reputation for standing out in a bad way, looking as awfully stiff as a bad video-game, but in this movie the CGI was just as fluid and stimulating to experience as 2D-animation. Rich in color, motion, and patient enough to let certain sceneries emotionally settle with audiences, BELLE felt very well done.

(Rural village girl, Suzu, and an online avatar called Beast)
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The story's more than just a fancy spin on the classic Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, although the movie definitely lifts a lot of its elements from that source. What really separates, BELLE from the Beauty and the Beast story is that it's not about romance or magic, even though technology displayed here is rather magical, but about loss, trauma, and rising above our own pain to recognize the pain of others so to help them rise as well.

(Bell and the Beast in U)
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One of the more clever things about the movie are the names. The virtual world that the main character joins is called "U," likely as in "universal." However, the in-game AI introduces new people to the world as if the world of "U" is the "you" inside everyone in the virtual world. The main character Suzu's avatar in "U" is referred to as "Bell" because of her beauty and importance in the community. She becomes a world-wide singing sensation, and everyone has heard of "the Bell in U." There is also a user who's avatar is called Beast. The Beast is angry and violent, which later results in people referring to "the search for the Beast in U," which is rather poetic. There are also avatars in the world of "U" owned by rich people and corporations that call themselves "Justice" because they use their power of Light to control people in "U" since the creators, or "Voices," have more or less left everyone to their own devices. I appreciated that the avatars that were trying to control the denizens of "U" were a bunch of rich people and corporations calling themselves "Justice," as in only rich people and big corporations had the resources and know-how to decide what was right and wrong in the new virtual world of "U." Then there are plays in the concept of "light," which is a weapon that Justice uses to keep everyone in line. The danger of "light" is that if its shined upon a user in "U," their avatar will fade away and reveal their true face, removing their anonymity and revealing their true identity to everyone. They call this process "unveiling." It was a very appropriate concept for our modern online age where many people hide behind anonymous digital avatars and fear the idea of being unmasked to the rest of the online world.

(Suzu's avatar, Belle, trying to hide her identity in the virtual world of U)
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The film does a good job of using speech bubbles that pop onto the screen en-masses, a giant swarm of online comments that symbolizes the mob-mentality of certain large online interactions but also the discrepancy between who users in the virtual world of "U" really are compared to how they behave online. It's represents the old adage about people being more honest, but sometimes more cruel, when they are given the safety of a mask.

(I like this screenshot because Suzu looks a little crazy and I like to think this links to the frenzied behavior of anonymous online activity ... but I don't condemn anonymity and privacy though, they are conditions and tools which can be used for good or evil, and cannot by themselves be moralized, only their users)
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I don't want to spoil the movie any further since I was very much impressed with it at almost every moment all the way through. If I have to offer any criticism, it's that I think the movie focuses more on the effects of loss on children and not parents, but the story's about a child suffering the pain of loss -- not a parent.

Here's the Youtube trailer for BELLE -- and, yes, unlike most cases this movie does a great job living up to its trailer.

BELLE's director & writer Mamoru Hosoda
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I haven't done this before but I wanted to post a screenshot of the English & Japanese voice actors for BELLE, even though I have only watched the English dubbed version. Sometimes I've found that the Japanese version can leave a slightly or entirely different impression on me than the English version.

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FINAL GRADE?

I really enjoyed BELLE and felt emotionally pummeled at its climax, as all good movies should leave their audience.

Hope you enjoyed this movie review!

If you're interested in more movies reviews by me, here's a list of my previous entries:

Movie Review for 2020's "The Night House"

Movie Review for 2021's "Hellbender"

Movie Review for 2022's "Chainsaw Massacre"

Movie Review for 2014's "Mama"

Movie Review for 2021's "Master"

Movie Review for 2021's "Stillwater"

Movie Review for 2021's "Blue Bayou"

Movie Review for 1997's "Conspiracy Theory"

Movie Review for 2016's "A Silent Voice"

Movie Review for 2019's "Weathering With You"

Movie Review for 2021's "A Classic Horror Story"

Movie Review for 2016's "Your Name"

Movie Review for 2017's "Wind River"

Movie Review for 2022's "Incantation"

Movie Review for 2022's "Thor: Love & Thunder"