The Red Turtle Review | VIFF 2016

<p>Studio Ghibli has been synonymous with wonder and delight in animation for decades&period; By making anime&comma; Studio Ghibli are iconic and legendary by making that type of animation legitimate&period; You won&&num;8217&semi;t find any of the animation here&period; After Hayao Miyazaki&&num;8217&semi;s retirement from the company&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s safe to say the public has been wondering what the company is going to do next&period; If it&&num;8217&semi;s <em>The Red Turtle<&sol;em>&comma; the directorial debut of Michaël Dudok de Wit&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m very nervous of their future&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In this near dialogue-free film&comma; a man washes ashore from what looks to just being lost at sea&period; He happens to wash up on an island that is free of all people&period; Alone&comma; but not dumb&comma; this man keeps himself alive long enough to build a raft to get away until something destroys the raft from under him&period; He builds this raft again and again&period; Still destroyed&period; He eventually resigns himself to his fate of living on this island forever until <em>The Red Turtle<&sol;em> shows up&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>At a mere 80 minutes&comma; I feel like I&&num;8217&semi;m cheating you out of a large portion of the film&period; <em>The Red Turtle <&sol;em>isn&&num;8217&semi;t a fast paced film&comma; by any means&comma; and that does work to its strengths&period; Not a film about plot&comma; so much as a film that wants you to feel what it&&num;8217&semi;s saying&comma; <em>The Red Turtle <&sol;em>slowly peels open to show the true message of what it&&num;8217&semi;s getting at&period; Based off the small description&comma; I doubt you&&num;8217&semi;d guess&comma; but the film looks into family quite a bit&period; Unfortunately&comma; the pace starts to wear thin and makes you feel like you&&num;8217&semi;ve wasted your time for it to get where it really wanted to get to&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;113921" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-113921" style&equals;"width&colon; 670px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-113921 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;10&sol;03202636&sol;the-red-turtle-cannes&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;The Red Turtle&comma; Studio Ghibli&rpar;" width&equals;"670" height&equals;"377" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-113921" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>The Red Turtle<&sol;em>&comma; Studio Ghibli&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>I don&&num;8217&semi;t want to give the impression that this isn&&num;8217&semi;t a pretty film&period; There is a beauty that&&num;8217&semi;s different from other Ghibli films and it helps establish its own identity&period; Sadly&comma; even the art style can&&num;8217&semi;t help it from feeling like an 80 minute student film&period; The conundrum here is the themes of the film aren&&num;8217&semi;t given enough time to be explored and yet&comma; there isn&&num;8217&semi;t enough here to really chew on for the full runtime&period; You get cute little animals and whimsical things to entertain you for&comma; maybe 20 minutes&comma; but that&&num;8217&semi;s about it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I honestly can&&num;8217&semi;t recommend much about this movie&period; By the time the director was ready to explore his themes&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;d checked out&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s difficult to stretch a minimal film into something that&&num;8217&semi;s hardly feature length&comma; but then there should be some awareness that maybe your film shouldn&&num;8217&semi;t be so long&period; Then again&comma; sometimes people just don&&num;8217&semi;t care all that much&period; And this just seems that it&&num;8217&semi;s a passion project of one man who had an incredibly small vision&period; That small vision was title <em>The Red Turtle&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;