THE RED TURTLE/ LE TORTUE ROUGE

France, Belgium, Japan, 2016, 80 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Michael Dudok de Wit.

The Red Turtle is an animation film for a wide range of audience – the children will need some patience because of the lack of dialogue, the measured pace of the storytelling. The film is something of a gentle fable about the world, about life, about relationships.

The film is the work of a Dutch writer and filmmaker, Michael Dudok de Wit, who won an Academy award in 2000 for his short animated film, Father and Daughter. This is his first feature film. While it is a European story and production, it has been made in collaboration with the great Studio Ghibli of Japan, with its co-founder, Isao Takahata, having the credit of Executive Producer of animation. The Japanese the director free rein – and he has fashioned a story, a style of animation, characters and values that permeate the Studio Ghibli films.

The film opens with turmoil at sea, a young man seemingly surviving a wreck, thrown onto a beach of an isolated tropical island. He does find a barrel in the water later but it is empty. Like Robinson Crusoe, he is on his own. He explores the island, the beaches, the forests with the thin trees and the fallen logs, the rock top, the cliffs, and falling into a hole and having to use his ingenuity to squeeze his way through a thin crevice.

But he is also enterprising, using the logs to build a raft with branches for shade and ventures out and to the sea. However he does not get very far when a mysterious shudder goes through the raft and it falls to pieces – and this happens again, and again.

It is here that the Turtle is introduced, destroying the raft, landing on the beach with the frustrated would-be sailor. In his mood, he turns the turtle on its back and leaves it exposed to the sun. Gradually, some humanity returns and he provides water to the turtle and builds a shelter – but then something extraordinary happens.

The other island parallel to this story is that of The Blue Lagoon, the young man and woman stranded on the island, their love and companionship, their baby, the child growing over the years.

The atmosphere of the island is beautifully created, not only the forest and cliffs and the beaches, but also the range of birds continually flying around and a group of crabs who start to observe the man, provide some comic touches as they share his food and spend a lot of time watching him. There is also an extraordinary tsunami which sweeps over the island in devastation.

There is a pleasing humanity pervading this story – a story of continued hope, of love, a little fable about the meaning of life, love and death.

1. The title, the turtle itself, its look, size, and the transformation? And the final transformation at the end?

2. The animation style, the landscapes, seascapes, colours? Characters, situations, interactions? The musical score?

3. A collaboration between Europe and Japan? The tradition of Studio Ghibli and this film in that tradition?

4. The style of storytelling, within the context of the sea, the island, sounds and laughter but virtually wordless?

5. The images of the sea, the storm, placid and calm, beautiful, the waves? The island, the beaches, the forest, the trees, the logs? The top of the island? The cliffs? The waterhole?

6. Overtones of the story of Robinson Crusoe, of the Blue Lagoon, even of the television series, Lost?

7. The man in the sea, the turmoil, getting to land, exhausted on the beach, the exploration through the forest, the cliff, the waterhole and swimming through the crevice? Minimum of words? His sounds? Collecting the logs, building the raft? The several attempts, the bumps and destruction of the rafts? Finally encountering the Red Turtle?

8. The background of the birds, flying, their sounds? The huge numbers before the tsunami? The crabs, the comic touches, their watching, participating, the food? The waves, the hole, squeezing through the rocks? And later this happening for the baby boy?

9. Encountering the turtle, on shore, his anger, turning the turtle on its back, his bad mood, his continuing his work, the beating down of the sun, his feeling sorry, building the shelter for the turtle, getting the water?

10. The Red Turtle transforming into a woman? His companion, their sharing, life together, the baby, the child growing up, its falling down the cliff, squeezing through the crevice? The idyllic life?

11. The birds, the sound, the warning of the tsunami, its breaking over the beach, into the forests, the trail of destruction? The father, out to sea, on the log, the mother exhausted on the beach, the son rescuing his father?

12. Time passing, the son and his decision to leave, going out on his own? The couple growing old, white hair, lying on the beach, the death of the man, the sadness of his wife, her returning to the sea and becoming the turtle again?

13. A fable about life, existence, love and nurturing? Death?