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Scene from "Belle": The Japanese film makes Disney's romantic fairy tales look old
Photo: Koch Media
In the cinema
»belle«
What will the Metaverse look like in a few years?
Japanese animator Mamoru Hosoda envisioned it in »Belle«, his new stroke of genius based on the Oscar-nominated fairy tale »Mirai«.
»U« (like »you«) is the name of his all-encompassing social network, because everything here revolves around the expression and satisfaction of personal needs.
Hidden behind an elaborately playful avatar, 17-year-old Suzu can live out things online that she can't in real life.
After her mother died in an accident, her singing voice failed her.
On the other hand, with a little help from her best friends, she can wow the masses online as the power pop sensation Belle.
At a virtual concert, however, there is a scandal: an underground player hiding behind the darkly violent avatar "Beast" gets involved in a fight, forcing Belle to stop.
Angry, their fans mobilize against Beast.
But Suzu and her gang realize that the violence is not coming from him, but that he is only trying to defend himself and that his player may be in acute danger in real life.
Worried, they go in search of him and use every digital trail that could lead to him.
The names Belle and Beast suggest that Disney's Beauty and the Beast was an inspiration for Hosoda.
But starting with the intoxicating images from the "U" universe to the suspenseful search for Beast, "Belle" makes Disney's romantic fairy tale look more than old - Suzu's story is so differentiated and manages to combine grief and love as well as To negotiate friendship and trust without overloading oneself with topics.
»Belle« is not a quiet triumph - but a loud and euphoric one.
Hannah Pilarczyk
»Belle«, Japan 2021. Written and directed by Mamoru Hosoda.
121 minutes.
»Jurassic World: A New Era«
Long gone are the days of trying to keep dinosaurs captive in a maximum security park.
In "Jurassic World: A New Age" they are spread all over the world, all in all they live peacefully side by side.
But suddenly swarms of giant locusts devastate entire regions.
That's why they have to go back, the brave researchers and scientists who were in the first film in 1993 and have since been played by Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neill.
So who are the dinosaurs here, the somewhat outdated actors or the computer-animated primal creatures running and flying around happily?
It doesn't matter, with the numerous hunts that director Colin Trevorrow imposes on his characters, the tired bones quickly wake up again.
In addition, the doctor trio gets support from the robust Owen Grady (Chris Patt), who breaks in dinosaurs like horses.
This film is not really compelling.
The villain, played by Campbell Scott as Tim Cook's version, also hesitates and often seems surprisingly absent-minded.
You feel a bit like at a class reunion where you know in advance who will tell which anecdote: Do you remember how you used to gossip in Brachiosaurus shit?
The film is a nice nostalgia trip with quite a lot of action spectacle.
Maybe we should really leave the dinosaurs to their own devices in the future.
Lars Olav Beier
»Jurassic World: A New Era«, USA 2022. Director: Colin Trevorrow.
Book: Emily Carmichael, Trevorrow.
Starring Chris Patt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill.
147 minutes.
»France«
Tout le monde knows her, even Emmanuel Macron calls her by name at press conferences: France de Meurs (Léa Seydoux) is the most famous journalist in France, and of course she is beautiful and stylish too.
As a TV reporter, she reports from the world's crisis regions.
The fact that she was usually only there for a few days or even just a few hours is of the least concern to her.
If the pictures of insurgents with guns in hand in front of a desert panorama are in the can, then there is no need for research - the reporter France deals with emotions.
However, when she causes a car accident that leaves a young migrant delivery man in the hospital, she becomes the subject of the headlines herself.
Is it time for self-reflection, the exit from the cynical media business that only knows clicks, likes and excitement?
Of course not in a film by Bruno Dumont.
After great success with social dramas, the Frenchman reinvented himself as the most humorous misanthrope in world cinema and, among other things, shot a metal musical about Joan of Arc.
In »France«, he now turns against the educated middle-class audience, which turns up its nose at the new media and at the same time lets itself be fobbed off with old-fashioned purification stories.
Again and again, Dumont Seydoux lets bitter tears shed.
But the tears fall into nothing, France does not change.
That makes the film a frustration, but a salutary one: anyone who has freed himself from his expectations after a dramatic crisis and subsequent moral clarity can also look forward to the excitement on Twitter, Telegram and Bild TV more calmly.
Hannah Pilarczyk
»France«, France 2021. Written and directed by Bruno Dumont.
With: Lea Seydoux, Benjamin Biolay, Blanche Gardin.
133 minutes.
In the media libraries
»Flee« (in the Arte media library)
In February, the Danish film »Flee« made history.
It was nominated in three different categories at the Oscars: Best Foreign Language Production, Best Animated Film and Best Documentary.
That had never happened before.
Of course, the question arises as to how this is even possible.
Aren't animated images per se very far removed from reality?
It's going ok!
»Flee« turned out to be a great hybrid film.
When, at the beginning, shadowy people rush through collapsing buildings, which can also only be seen in outline, the film unfolds an oppressive effect and topicality precisely from its abstraction: These are images that we have known from the news for weeks, but they tell a story in "Flee" from a very different country and a very different war.
The story is about the odyssey of the young Afghan Amin Nawabi, who fled his country to Europe in the late 1980s.
»Flee« is based on interviews that director Jonas Poher Rasmussen conducted with Nawabi.
The two have known each other for a long time.
In the film, you can also see animated sequences of them talking to each other and Nawabi revealing his life story.
Interspersed are documentary historical shots that show, for example, life on the streets in Afghanistan.
Little by little, the moving fate of a man unfolds, who needed a long time before he could live out his homosexuality, and even longer before he developed a feeling of security.
Lars Olav Beier
»Flee«, Denmark 2021. Director: Jonas Poher Rasmussen.
Book: Rasmussen, Amin Nawabi.
85 minutes.
