Japanese director Mamoru Hosoda is often compared to his great predecessor, the legendary master of animation Hayao Miyazaki, but the rapprochement stops there, as Mamoru Hosoda disagrees with the “
sacred
”
image
of women conveyed by his elders. By wanting to make them "
paragons of virtues or innocence
", we are
doing a
disservice
to young girls today, any more than the demonization of the Internet helps young people, he judges in a interview with AFP on the occasion of the presentation in Cannes of his latest film,
Belle
, an ultra-contemporary and progressive remake of the classic youthful tale
Beauty and the Beast
.
Read also: With
Summer Wars
, Mamoru Hosoda goes on the attack
"
For the young generation, the internet existed before they were born and is therefore inseparable from their world, we must accept it and learn to use it better
," he said, reproaching many filmmakers, including the star Hollywood Steven Spielberg in
Ready Player One
(2018), to get attached to the internet instead of showing young people how to take control of their destiny.
"
We spend their time telling them how bad and dangerous it is,
" laments the 53-year-old director, nominated for an Oscar in 2008 for Miraï, my little sister.
With
Belle
, presented out of competition on the Croisette, he takes the opposite view.
Human relationships can be complex and extremely painful for young people.
I wanted to show that this virtual world, hard and terrible as it can be, can also be positive
Mamoru hosoda
The story is set in a small rural town in present-day Japan. A shy teenager broken by the accidental death of her mother when she was little, Suzu, invents a double life on the internet where she finds the taste to sing and finds herself becoming the musical muse of millions of young people. The metamorphosis is complete. Suzu becomes Belle and the uniform of the sad little college girl gives way to a flamboyant look of a diva with a magnetic voice in this virtual digital world supported by an application ironically dubbed "
U
", which means "
You.
»In English whereas the site proposes to transform its identity. As she adds up the fans, Suzu suffers a surge of hate online. Instead of being defeated, she will unexpectedly use her avatar to resist it. “
Human relationships can be complex and extremely painful for young people. I wanted to show that this virtual world, hard and terrible as it can be, can also be positive,
”says Mamoru Hosoda.
In this story, served by an explosion of colors, songs and action scenes, Suzu and his computer-savvy girlfriend have nothing to do with the eternal feminine usually inhabiting Japanese animation.
"
You only have to watch Japanese animated films to see how young women are underestimated and not taken seriously by society,
" he bluntly criticizes.
He adds: "
It really annoys me to see these characters of young women treated as something sacred and unrelated to the reality of who they are
."
More complex and richer
Without naming him, he grazes the great master of animation Hayao Miyazaki, whose films have become classics for children and who systematically takes young, somewhat ethereal women for heroines. “
This veneration of young women really bothers me, very little for me!
», He insists, anxious to allow his female characters to escape«
the oppression of having to be like everyone else
».
Raised himself by a single mother, at a time when single-parent families were rare in Japan, the director willingly roots his films at the heart of social realities.
The Wolf Children, Ame & Yuki
(2012) forced the line with a maternal heroine raising her young alone on the margins of society. Admitting his preference for stories "
showing the good and the bad in people in a tension which makes them human beings
", he explains to have thought a lot about the character of Beauty. “
In the original story
,” he said,
the Beast is the most interesting character: he is hideous, violent but sensitive and vulnerable. Beautiful sounds hollow on the side, everything revolves around her physique and I wanted to make her character more complex and richer,
”he says.
