THE ART OF BELLE

Trevor Hogg unveils the creative minds responsible for the world building and character design of gorgeous anime film Belle

- Trevor Hogg

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 young people sticking around in these small areas. I wanted to depict that social issue, in the sense that there is no one seeing that other extreme of what this globalising economy has produced in some ways.”

CONSTRUCTING U

Placed in charge of conceptualising U and making his debut as a production designer was London-based architect