OUAN602 - Manchester Animation Festival: The Red Turtle

The Red Turtle felt like one of the most anticipated showings of the festival because it was only one of a handful of showings of the film. I didn't know quite what to expect going into it having had only seen the trailer and in reflection I have to say it was a very different experience than what I foresaw. The no-dialogue approach was a good decision, and the narrative of the animation was clear. One of the most stand out aspects of the film for me was the depiction of emotion and relationships amongst the three characters in the film. It felt like a very heart warming and emotive tale, that has unforeseen events that honestly left me unsure what to feel, upset or happy. This occurred at points when the son left and when the man dies at the end of the film, before his wife returned to being a red turtle and left the island. These are undoubtedly sad events without the context of the film there, but it was hard to make clear sense of it as it was happening.

The basic plot [as I remember it] is that a man becomes stranded on an island where he finds fresh water, fruit and a forest of bamboo. In an attempt to leave the island he builds a raft and tries to leave, as he is getting further out to sea a red turtle appears and destroys his raft, forcing him to try again. After multiple attempts he begins to give up. One night the red turtle comes ashore and the man using a bamboo stick turns it onto its back and leaves it. Feeling guilty he returns to the turtle and tries to feed it but discovers it has died. The next day the man returns to the turtle to find it has turned into a woman, who lies there where the turtle was. As it begins to rain on the island the woman wakes up and the two form a relationship. As time progresses they two have a child, who eventually grows old enough and leaves the island with three red turtles. After what seems like many years in the story the man eventually dies peacefully whilst lying under the moon, the woman the returns to the sea as a red turtle and it ends.

On the surface this sounds like a very simple plot, but over the course of the film felt like a complex depiction of emotions and the relationships of a family in many ways. Including the natural progression and the growing up of a child before they leave home.

The film is described as a fantasy, but I wouldn't hesitate to suggest that the film possesses enough nuance to be potentially labelled as magical realism, with a very real world setting an a lack of explanation for the transformation of the red turtle. Certainly it holds fantastical elements and places them in a real world. This of course can be related back to the director, Michaël Dudok de Wit who usually hints at some kind of fantasy elements within his work, which also can be seen in Father and Daughter in the ending dream sequence that depicts the reuniting of the Father and Daughter in the afterlife - so the themes of family and surrealism are also apparent here.