Hi! You’re reading an entry in the Jscars 2022, a series on my favorite movies of the year 2022. Read the previous entries here:
All Quiet on the Western Front
“Come, it’s time to live as another you. Come, it’s time to start another life. Come, it’s time to change the world.”
Virtual Reality is a topic I’ve been hearing about for years now. Within the realm of gaming it’s been a consistent presence ever since the launch of the Oculus Rift back in 2016, with companies trying to pour tons of money into the big world-changing experience that’s going to ensure everyone will want to get their hands on a VR headset and launch them into mainstream status. And yet despite all the high-tech experiences and market research going into them, one of the most played VR games to this day if not the most played is a somewhat goofy looking game called VR Chat. Players can choose from a variety of different avatars, some original characters and some existing fictional characters. And from there they can simply go to various different environments and meet other players in a new virtual world.
Belle envisions a much more high budget version of VRChat with a player base spanning practically the whole planet, known as U. When mild-mannered schoolgirl Suzu logs in and transforms into pop sensation Belle, she’s able to perform to the whole world without a single person aside from her best friend knowing who she really is. Immediately the story begins asking questions about the nature of identity and how the way we perceive ourselves and the space we occupy is reflected in the way other people view us. While these topics aren’t handled in the most subtle or nuanced ways imaginable by any stretch, it’s still refreshing to see a story about technology talk about these themes in a way that’s not too boomer-ish. At least not entirely.
But really what the movie’s story does that places it on its list, is its excellence at a type of moment in media I call the “anime tearjerker.” You see, as I discussed earlier in my Avatar entry into this series, I am not immune to overly sentimental storytelling. And if there’s any medium that can pull these moments off in a way that gets me every time, it’s anime. There have been comments made about the film “ripping off” Beauty and the Beast or being too hokey at times, but I simply do not care. I have seen it four times now and every single time I have at least teared up at the big emotional musical number near the ending. Maybe I’m the sucker but if so I love it. Characters scream, cry, and sing about their fears of loss or not being able to fully understand each other, and it touches the most soft and gooey part of my heart as I sit there, tissue box in hand, nodding along.
And I haven’t even mentioned how gorgeous the movie’s animation is yet. I was skeptical of the decision to release the film in IMAX theaters, fearing that the extra ticket price wouldn’t be worth the visual upgrade. But it absolutely was. Saying frames of an animated movie look like a painting may be an overdone compliment, but several stills from this movie could genuinely give off that impression, as well as some moments in motion utilizing CG animation in ways that were almost too impressive visually, such as one sequence with a giant dome arena that has so many flying pieces that each look so crisp you can get somewhat swept away in the grandeur of the presentation and lose focus on the main events of the film. That might not sound like a compliment but to me for a movie to get me to pay that much attention to such a detail is amazing.
Belle was the first new movie I watched this year, all the way back in January of 2022. And yet still now, over a year later, the artistry of its themes, its biggest moments, and the movie as a whole stay near the forefront of my mind. It’s the kind of movie where the only real word you can use to describe it is beautiful.