Exploring the impact of the internet on society has become a favourite theme for Japanese filmmaker Mamoru Hosoda, who revisits the subject matter in Belle where a teenager still grieving the childhood drowning of her mother literally rediscovers her voice as a diva avatar in the virtual realm known as U. “I tried to imagine if there was this complete melting pot of different cultures and all kinds of backgrounds gathering in a single cybernetic type of space, what would it look like?” explains Hosoda.
“It was a much more colourful palette. It was a megacity type of visual depiction. It has this vitality where people can come and express themselves. In contrast, the more remote areas that Suzu Naito lives in in her reality, I wanted to depict them losing their strength or position in this more globalising economy, and yet they have such wonderful natural landscapes. But there are fewer
