Surprise: Studio Ghibli made a beautiful movie. Once you’re done collecting your jaw from the floor, you can click this link and zip over to The Playlist and read the review I wrote about Michaël Dudok de Wit’s The Red Turtle, a movie so lovely, minimalist, and thoughtful that it may assuage whatever sociopolitical anxieties you’re wrestling with right about now.
The Red Turtle is the exact opposite: It’s a story for adults told with the simplicity of a nursery fable. It can be read as a metaphor for being stuck in life, whether literally on an island or figuratively in a job, a relationship, or a town that you hate, and about making peace with that situation.
There’s definitely a flexibility here that I appreciate, but really, it’s just a pleasure to watch the film without necessarily looking for a specific, drilled down meaning in its poetry. It’s wonderful.