In Mamoru Hosoda’s “Scarlet,” hand-drawn animation dances with pc graphics, making a tapestry as poetic as its Shakespearean roots. Impressed by “Hamlet,” this contemporary story trades vengeance for therapeutic, reframing tragedy as a journey towards forgiveness. “There’s that very well-known line, ‘To be or to not be,’ and I attempted to think about what that very same query would seem like in as we speak’s phrases and visible expression,” says the writer-director. As Scarlet (Mana Ashida) is pulled into the Outerworld, a realm between life and dying, she finds an unlikely ally in EMT Hijiri (Masaki Okada) — and a panorama formed by non secular iconography depicting heaven and hell. “What the analysis instructed me is that maybe these locations are an extension of our personal world,” Hosoda says. “With ‘Scarlet,’ I imagined this world as a continuation of actuality the place life and dying aren’t opposing however an extension of each other.” The story’s emotional climax, the crescendo of his daring reply to Shakespeare’s soliloquy, is drenched in golden hues to underscore a life or dying alternative. “When Scarlet beneficial properties one thing, she additionally loses one thing,” Hosoda explains. “And the query I used to be making an attempt to ask is: ‘What are you going to decide on and what are you going to let go of?’ ”
