Belle is a film about grief and the acceptance of loss. It follows Suzu, a young girl who deals with the loss of her mother by escaping into the online world of U. Here she is able to find her voice, becoming a viral superstar as the reality she has always wished for finally comes to fruition. It's a beautiful fantasy, but also a heartfelt example of learning to admire who you are and embracing the help of those around you.
Ahead of its release in UK cinemas I had a chance to sit down with director Mamoru Hosoda to talk about Belle’s creation, Suzu’s role as a heroine, and how so many of his films deal with the i🐻deas of loss, acceptance, and virtual identity.
“At the start of the film, [Suzu] isn’t the heroine, she’s quite dark, she’s overwhelmed with the trauma of losing her mother,” Hosoda tells me, recalling the loss that underpins so many of the film’s central themes. “She doesn’t believe in herself, and I believe there’s a lot of people like that today, including in the online world. I think we have this tool in social media where we can connect with the online world, and it looks very positive, like on TikTok everyone is always so happy, but I think a lot of young people feel like it leads to feelings of lonelinꦏess, and low self-esteem, and I wonder how they will manage when they’re faced with the possibility of being trolled the second they post something online. That’s what I wanted to explore in Belle, and also about the context of my own five-year old daughter and how she will cope in the future.”
Hosoda has been making films for decades, his catalogue including the likes of Wolf Children, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, and Summer Wars - the latter dealing with an online landscape long before the advent of social media. Belle feels like a renewed examination of that picture’s ideas, and how humanity has become increasingly reliant 🎀on the internet to feel a sense of belonging, or to escape from a reality that feels suffocating to who we want to be. This is especially true for marginalised groups who don’t have a place𝓀 in the real world to uncover who they are, and Belle is awash with virtual avatars and falsified personas that mimic such exploration. Suzu herself transforms from an insecure, freckle-addled schoolgirl to a beautiful goddess the second she enters U. All of a sudden her insecurities are gone, but this isn’t a blanket of protection to be constantly relied on, and Hosoda hopes to make that clear to the people watching.
“It’s not just LGBT people, but so many others who feel oppressed by society and are able to make use of this online world to uncover a hidden self, and to reveal that I think is really important,” Hosoda explains. “We’re all multifaceted people, and if there was only one world, we would only get to show one side of ourselves, and then maybe we would be born and we would die without anyone ever seeing that side of who we are. But here and in Belle we have two worlds, and that self that’s been suppressed or oppressed by the one world has the opportunity to be free in the other. That’s the case with ꦑSuzu, who doesn’t even realise that Belle is inside her. But online, she discovers this other side of herself that helps her grow stronger, and I think that idea applies to so many people.”
Despite everything she goes through, Suzu remains a strong female character with a level of agency that we honestly don’t see enough in anime. Hayao Miyazaki’s depiction of women can often leave something to be desired, while other filmmakers like Makoto Shinﷺkai and Masaaki Yuasa are leading the charge w💎ith fantastic films such as Your Name and Ride Your Wave. Like many other mediums, female characters are often given a rough ride, but Hosoda seeks to take inspiration from all the people in his life who have inspired him.
“I think my depiction of strong female characters goes back to the fact that I tend to be influenced by the people around me,” Hosoda says. “I write about my mother, my wife, my daughter, and all those close to me who influ🌳ence my work. Whether these characters are male or female, they will all have some kind of obstacle or problem to tackle that they will have to overcome. I want to show their humanity and the strength they have in overcoming the obstacles they face, and how I want to be that kind of person and that should be the kind of person the audience wants to be as well.
“Belle is also based on Beauty and the Beast, which is an 18th century tale set in a feudal society where women are given the role in this patriarchal structure of being the beauty, and part of me wondered how ﷽would that change if we set the story today? Who would be considered the beauty? It wasn’t someone who is externally attractive and cheerful and accepting of their position in society, it would be someone who tries to grow and become stronger, and that’s exactly what Suzu does in becoming Bell💟e. Belle helps her become a stronger version of herself and that is really beautiful.”
Suzu as a character bears a resemblance to Wolf Children’s Hana, a heroine who must also deal with a profound loss and accept the help of those around her in a tale defined by grief as much as it is by love and optimism. Friends💯, family, and how we view them in our lives can be an inherently beautiful thing, but also someth✤ing frequently addled by unexpected hardships. So many of Hosoda’s films depict this struggle so eloquently, and hearing him talk about the inspiration behind them is a source of fascinating melancholy.
“Wolf Children was really about my own mother, and how she raised me,” Hosoda explains. “After I finished making Summer Wars she sad🐻ly passed away, and that brought up a lot of feelings about how maybe I’d let her down or hadn’t been as good to her as I could have been. And then I look at my own children who are 9 and 5, and I just think about how ♛they couldn’t possibly survive without their mother. Of course, I know there are plenty of single fathers raising children, but it just seems to me that their mother is so important to them, and losing her would be so much harder for them than losing me. It’s something I think about everyday, and in the film Suzu loses her mother at a very young age, and she doesn’t understand why she had to lose her mother like that.”
Belle is an emotionally unrelenting film for anyone who has lost a relative close to them, and Hosoda isn’t afraid to make that feel raw and uncompromising. The same execution can be found in other themes scattered throughout the narrative. The Beast - who in reality is a young boy dealing with the loss of his own mother - is trapped 🌄in a household with an abusive father who beats him and his younger brother because his own grief is manifested in violence towards the offspring his late wife has left behind. She isn’t here anymore, and now these children are a constant reminder of the love he lost and will never recover. It’s heartbreaking, and Belle isn’t afraid to show that loss can manifest itself ⛦in untold ways, whether it be violence, emotional withdrawal, or delving into virtual worlds to find yourself.
Kei’s id🀅entity as The Beast has him painted as a dangerous being tain🎀ted by scars that represent his real-life struggles, and throughout the film Belle seeks to form a connection with him, to learn how their trauma aligns and what can be done to fix them both. There is no immediate solution, just like in the real world, and Hosoda is keen to emphasise that.
“The absence of a mother in Kei’s family and the absence of a mother in Suzu’s family, they really do mirror each other,” Hosoda says. “Suzu has this awkward relationship with her father, while Kei has a very bad relationship with his. As a child or a young person watching [Belle] you will think the violence and abuse that Kei s♈uffers is truly evil, and it is. But as a father myself, I can kind of imagine myself being that person as an adult. A lot of people watching that will think that it is purely other people’s problem, but you could put a foot wrong and that could change your family completely. There’s also the relationship with Suzu and her father which, although it’s awkward at the end of the film, it’s started to be repaired, and they’re starting to grow closer together, and that is also possible.”
So much of Hosoda’s work focuses on the online world that I had to ask♕ if he’s a gamer, given our site’s namesake it would be a betrayal if I didn’t. “I often get asked whether I play a lot of games or whether I’m active on social media because of the films I’ve made,” Hosoda laughs. “I used to, but not anymore. I find that not being involved helped me to be more objective about the online world but I did used to be a bit of a gamer when I played Virtua Fighter in the Game Centre. I think you can tell that from the amount of martial arts-inspired characters in my films, even in Belle. So yes, I have been quite influenced by games. And of course, the concept of another world existing is already there in games like Fortnite or Animal Crossing which I often see being played by my wife and children.”