The Red Turtle (2016)

I hadn't planned on seeing two Japanese animations in a row; I just noticed that this one was playing at the theater and wouldn't be available on Netflix until May. Fortunately, it's only slightly Japanese: While the Studio Ghibli label turns up first, it's one of seven production companies. The director is Dutch-British, and most of the people involved are from France or Belgium. (That would explain the Tintin-like character designs.)

An adult male castaway on a bamboo-forested island shoves off on a raft, but the titular turtle bumps it to pieces from beneath. He finds the turtle on the beach and overturns her but then guiltily tries to keep her alive. Then, without explanation, she turns into a human in a half-shell. And eventually wakes up and gets out of it (off screen). No longer hasty to leave, the half-dazed man falls for the woman. They go on to have a son, who grows increasingly curious about the outside world....

A little kid in my theater kept talking loudly, despite his mom's pleas. It didn't really matter, because there's no dialog to interrupt, even with three human characters together -- just the occasional fruitless call of "Heyyyyy!" That said, I don't recommend taking kids to this movie. It's simple to follow, but not much happens, so it feels padded for 80 minutes. In fact, only two events after the woman rises give us a sense of crisis, and they pass soon enough. The only arguable comic relief comes in the form of some cute crabs who always seek food, shown many times, particularly early on.

Nor are the visuals likely to captivate the audience for long. I dig the crisp movement of the turtles (yes, there's more than one), but there isn't much variety to the scenery. Certainly not in color. Night scenes are even in black and white or close to it, which actually rings true to my onetime experience, but realism gets you only so far in show business.

Or should I say "magical realism." The turtle's transformation is the only clear fantasy element. Earlier, the man had dreamed and evidently hallucinated, so I was ready to assume that everything else was hallucinated as well. But that gets hard to believe as years seem to pass, especially when the camera focuses on the son when the father isn't around.

I said it's simple to follow, but that doesn't mean simple to understand in the philosophical sense. I'm not sure it has a point to make. It wouldn't be the first Ghibli feature not to have an obvious point. If it's all about emotions, then I guess it succeeds. I did start to feel exhausted from all the depicted swimming, lugging, and otherwise surviving.

This is the sort of animated film that garners an Academy Award nomination without ever hoping for a win. It's so different...and yet so not. If you like All Is Lost, Cast Away, or maybe Life of Pi, you may be interested to see the closest thing in drawings and CG. Just don't expect anything like the next Spirited Away.