In what looks like the love child of Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life and Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist, Studio Ghibli have produced their first feature since 2014’s When Marnie Was There and it seems to be making quite the impression. The Red Turtle won the Special Jury Prize at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, where it was promptly snapped up for US distribution by Sony Classics in May.

Ghibli films generally tend to reach for wider appeal than your average animated feature, but the absence of dialogue makes this an interesting outlier in the studio’s canon. Most notably, this is Studio Ghibli’s first film by a non-Japanese director. Helmed by Dutch filmmaker Michael Dudok de Wit, is this perhaps a sign that the feted animation house is already embracing the winds of change following the retirement of Hayao Miyazaki?

The Red Turtle is released in the US 23 September.

Published 22 Sep 2016

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