Venice: "Scarlet" is an ambitious misstep

Elisa Giudici reporting from Venice

With Scarlet, Mamoru Hosoda takes his boldest swing yet, and lands his weakest film. Even compared with his early commercial outings (Digimon, One Piece), this latest work is a misfire: ambitious in scope, but undone by confused storytelling and uneven execution. The premise fuses Shakespeare and isekai. The film opens in 16th-century Denmark, where Scarlet, daughter of a murdered king, vows revenge against her uncle Claudius, who has seized the throne. Before she can act, Claudius poisons her, and the story pivots into the logic of isekai: Scarlet awakens in a strange afterlife populated by dragons and people from different eras, suspended in time. Death here is permanent, raising the stakes but also exposing how little sense the world makes...

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Interview: Mamoru Hosoda on his animated Oscar hopeful "Mirai"

by Nathaniel R

If Americans outside of the subculture of anime enthusiasts know anything about Japanese animation it's generally only related to Studio Ghibli. That legendary studio has been mostly dormant these last few years considering the on-again / off-again retirement of Hayao Miyazaki. It's long past time that American audiences start familiarizing themselves with other giants of the huge Japanese industry. One such artist is Mamoru Hosoda of Studio Chizu. The filmmaker, just 51, has already directed four films which won the Japanese equivalent of the Best Animated Feature Oscar: The Girl Who Lept Through Time, Summer Wars, Wolf Children, and The Boy and the Beast. He's yet to break through with Oscar but his latest feature, Mirai, is eligible this year and was among the nominees at the Golden Globes. It remains to be seen whether Mirai can repeat that trick to become an Oscar nominee (the new Academy rules allow non-animators to participate in the nomination process now, which will theoretically make it harder for the lower profile titles to score)  but we're hopeful.

We had the opportunity to speak to the filmmaker through a translater recently about his beautiful new film about childhood...

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