Belle - Dysfunctional Digital Duality

PATREON MOVIE DISCUSSION: 

This movie was selected by our Patreon Supporters over at the Cinematic Doctrine Patreon. Support as little as $3 a month and have your voice heard!  

Melanie joins Melvin to discuss Belle, Mamoru Hosoda's latest anime feature that combines real-life heart with the wonder of cyber-space! How well does he balance these ideas, and are we familiar with Hosoda's filmography? Tune in to hear that and more! 

Topics: 

• (PATREON EXCLUSIVE) 38-minutes discussing our history with Anime, what we like and dislike about the style, and where we currently stand as purveyors of the medium (PATREON EXCLUSIVE)
• Mamoru Hosoda clearly has a fascination with the duality between the real-world and digital-world as observed through his filmography (several Digimon movies, Summer Wars, Belle).
• Melanie connected with the way in which Suzu found her voice throughout the story's progression.
• Both Melvin and Melanie enjoyed most of the music, specifically the first song.
• Melvin saw one of Mamoru Hosoda's previous narrative successes, Wolf Children, and seriously disliked the movie. He routinely gets hate-mail for his scathing review left on MyAnimeList. Some problems he remembers from Wolf Children he also observed in Belle.
• Belle has many duality motifs including the imagery of a whale, a sea-creature dependent on air, or the difference between online and offline personalities.
• Belle is comprised of three narrative beats; digital world and concerts, slice-of-life, and the beauty and the beast. How you connect with each of these aspects will greatly impact your enjoyment of the film.
• Getting into the controversial twist that more-or-less co-opts the movie during its third act.
• Both Melanie and Melvin take issue with the severe lack of resolution presented by the introduction of Belle's twist, apart from the fact it's also comparatively uncomfortable.
• There's this expectation online that people have a right to information or knowledge regardless of boundaries or privacy. Melvin appreciated Belle's passive critique against this idea.
• Melvin and Melanie go full script-doctor because we're a podcast and that's what podcasts do.

Recommendations:

• Spriggan (1998) (Movie)
• Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999) (Movie)