The Red Turtle

Year: 2016
Genre: Animated
Directed: Michael Dudok de Wit
Stars: Michael Dudok de Wit
Production: Studio Ghibli

A man is tossed adrift in the middle of an ocean amid rough seas and high winds. When the storm has passed, he finds himself trapped on a remote island lightly populated by birds, crabs, seals and sea turtles. He quietly explores the island. The terrain is verdant; thick with underbrush and bamboo. The island's cavernous coves and its rocky lagoon hide a host of treasures including a reservoir of fresh rainwater. Still, every night he has lucid dreams of escape; flying through the glittering night as if on gossamer wings. He wakes up. He's alone - or so he thinks.

Thus begins The Red Turtle, a film whose simple plot, simple animation and simple message can't help but enlighten in a most profound way. The fable-like quality of the film often feels like the naive musings of a small child, seeing the world through new wide and innocent eyes. Only with patience might the unvarnished revelations of the human condition be revealed in a script virtually dialogue-less. The story leaves behind only the bare essentials - a singular theme, an elliptical orchestral coda, its characters and finally, the inevitable passage of time.

It is the film's treatment of time that does all the heavy lifting. We follow our man as he first attempts to escape his island, each time being rebuffed by the ocean and a mysterious red turtle that keeps him land-bound. He swims back to warm sands and punishing surf; exhausted, livid, stupefied and on the verge of breakdown. Then, like Sisyphus, he gets back up and tries again.

Then something changes. A woman appears on the island almost immediately changing the man's desperate, frustrated nature. Is she meant to symbolize the culmination of a journey? The pacifying of ambition? The ruination of loneliness? The measure of Boundless love free from material trappings? Whatever your answer might be, The Red Turtle's minimalist nature will echo your own thoughts, so long as your mind is quiet enough to receive them.

The Red Turtle is a concentrated dose of richly-layered storytelling and meditative pacing, which may turn off some viewers. Yet despite this, it manages to entreat even the most impatient of moviegoers to unfettered imagination and various minor miracle of hand-drawn animation. It casts a wide net in much the same way other Ghibli films have. It excites the frame with kind-hearted humor and real stakes that challenge the characters on the screen. The audience weathers a lot thus the man and woman's small victories on the desolate island feel like gainful triumphs glittering in a sea of beauty.

Of course, even with its subtle majesty, the primal seductiveness of The Red Turtle proves too overwhelming. Like looking at a national park's wonders through the tinted windows of a tour bus, there does come a time when all the beauty, all the grandeur, all the humanity just seems to melt into one long montage. It's another case of seeking universality through vaguely defined conduits rather than individual points of view. We see the man as, the man in the most general sense; not Joe or John or Sisyphus for that matter.

The film then compounds this problem by confusing the exploration of the island with the exploration of the self. It never realizes that the man is limited from exploring anything outside of his instincts to survive and because of the extremity of his situation, we don't either. In a hierarchy of needs sense, he hovers around a desire for intimacy and belonging but never achieves any self-actualization. Thus the conclusion, for all of its visual effectiveness can't help but feel just a tad artificial.

Quibbles aside, The Red Turtle still remains an effective, awe-inspiring and stunning achievement of form. It's flawless use of color and world-building blends with its artful story to create an unstoppable taciturn wonder. I cannot emphasize how beautiful this film truly is. Seek it out and watch it in theaters if you can.

Final Grade: B+