Island
life is an unremittingly harsh struggle against nature in Kaneto Shindo’s black-and-white
docu-tone poem The Naked Island.
However, it has its charms as well as its dangers for an animated castaway,
whose story is maybe not so stylistically dissimilar. It is the sort of
meditative, archetypal tale we rarely see in feature animation, but Studio
Ghibli is/was like no other animation production house. Just when we have
resigned ourselves to their long-term, possibly permanent development hiatus,
they release their first legitimate international co-production. Directed by
London-based Dutch animator Michaël Dudok de Wit and crediting the great Isao
Takahata as “artistic producer,” The Red
Turtle (trailer
here) is
another masterwork from all involved, which is now playing a special one-week Oscar-qualifying
run in New York and Los Angeles.
There
is nothing beautiful about the storm-churned waves battering the unnamed man
through the sea. It is practically a miracle when he comes to on a proverbial
desert island, but whenever he tries to sail away on a makeshift raft, a
mysterious giant sea turtle blocks his way. Just as he starts to get rough with
the beast, he notices a shy but obviously pretty woman, who is presumably a
castaway herself. This changes everything.
What
follows is a deceptively simple story that is deep as the ocean surrounding
their idyllic isle and ultimately serves as a metaphor for absolutely
everything. It is told without a word of dialogue, but there is plenty of
emotional engagement. Indeed, the pay-off is achingly beautiful.
It
would be unwise to reveal too much about the graceful narrative, but it should
be safe to say Red Turtle probably
boasts the most intense tsunami scene rendered to date in any film, of any
genre. It also captures the beauty of nature and inexplicable bond human-animal
bond. Dudok de Wit’s style is simpler and more evocative than the rich lushness
that often distinguishes Studio Ghibli productions, but his visuals are still striking,
in a way that is spare and even Spartan, yet undeniably gorgeous.
It
also sounds incredible, thanks to the soaring themes of composer Laurent Perez
Del Mar and the extraordinarily lifelike ambient sound (supervised by Bruno
Seznec). This film should not only be a strong contender for the animated
Academy Award. It truly deserves to be nominated in all the audio categories as
well.