I wasn’t sure what to expect going into Kubo and the Two Strings. The trailers I’d seen for the film hadn’t hooked me in with anything beyond some interesting visuals, and I was nervous after reading an early review that criticised the film for a lack of character development in the protagonist. To be honest, if it weren’t a Laika film, I might not have seen it at all. But Paranorman is one of my favourite animated movies ever, and The Boxtrolls, while somewhat flawed as a whole, has so many moments of pure genius that I knew I had to give Kubo a chance.

The movie opens with Kubo’s voice warning us, “If you must blink, do it now,” before we see a woman with an infant child piloting a boat through a raging storm where massive waves tower above her like mountains. She cuts through the waves with a magical stringed instrument (called a shamisen), but the boat is overwhelmed (literally!) and the woman is hurled into the sea where she strikes her head on a rock and washes up onto the shore.

In this single scene Laika throws everything they have at the screen. From a technical standpoint the animation on display here is simply unbelievable. Obviously some of the elements are digital (you can’t do water and mist with stop motion animation) but the way they’re melded together is so seamless and perfect you’ll never be sure exactly where the “real” elements end, and the digital ones begin. There is a moment where the woman is clawing her way down the beach, sending bits of rock flying up from where she plants her hands in the sand, that seems like it couldn’t have been practical, but it was.

But beyond the technical achievements the scene is brilliant for what it makes us feel. We live the horror of this woman and her baby facing a monster in the shape of a storm. We feel the pain of her collision with the rock. Our hearts hammer with worry for the infant being menaced by the waves.

Now the narrative jumps ahead ten years and the baby has grown into a boy; his name is Kubo. He cares for his mother, who seems to have suffered permanent mental damage from hitting her head so hard on that terrifying night. They live in a cave above a city where Kubo supports them by telling stories with tiny origami figures that he brings to life using his mother’s shamisen.

But when Kubo stays out past dark one night he attracts the attention of his grandfather, a god-like being who wants to take Kubo’s other eye, and he is forced to go on the run to find the three artifacts that can protect him.

Kubo and the Two Strings is a movie about stories and memories and lies. It is about the stories we tell each other to understand our world, the memories we hold in our hearts (and the ones we forget), the lies we tell ourselves about who we are. It’s easy to see Kubo telling stories with his little animated figures as a kind of self-portait for Laika. But it’s telling that Kubo himself is arguably the least interesting character in the film. He does not grow or change, he simply is. There’s an aura about his adventures that feels more like a legend than a story. Much like Hercules completing his labors, or Jason assembling his Argonauts, Kubo has a far more compelling outer journey than an inward one. But in spite of that, it’s still a powerful and effective experience. So much so that I was literally in tears by the end of the film.

Kubo and the Two Strings reminds us that we are all storytellers. We tell stories with our memories. We tell ourselves stories about who we are and the way the world is. And even if those memories aren’t perfect, even if those stories aren’t true, they’re still important. Because if we believe them, then they can become true. If we give ourselves to them, they can become perfect.

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