In Michael Dudok de Wit's daring full-length animated feature The Red Turtle, a Robinson Crusoe-type character engages in a titanic struggle with a giant sea turtle before giving in to the creature's demands that he surrender himself to the universal fate of mating with the opposite sex and giving birth to a male heir. If this sounds like it was snatched from the Donald Trump playbook, rest assured that this Japanese animation has a far more humane agenda.
The story is simple, fable-like in its approach, and should resonate with film buffs anxious for an old-fashioned cinema experience. Even the running time coincides with the time-honored Disney Studio playbook that animated features should last about the length of an average person's dream/REM cycle.
Growing up during the last two decades of the life and career of the actual Walt Disney, I've always had a bias for fully-executed animation, the kind that requires a small army of animators. Or if the film is to be executed in an "experimental" style, I prefer that it stick to the seven-minute running time of the great post-WWII cartoons from Disney, Warner Bros., MGM and some of the enterprising indie studios. The Red Turtle breaks with this rulebook, and I have to admit that it works for me. The film puts its hero in the kind of peril audiences have always loved: a character battles against an unknown, god-like power; the protagonist is in extreme danger, of drowning, falling from a great height, and finally, of falling in love with an elusive object of desire. Another ace up the creators' sleeves is the absence of dialogue, allowing us to fully give into the subtle earth tones that represent our unnamed hero's world.
Written by Dutch-British animator Dudok de Wit with Pascale Ferran, The Red Turtle has a haunting music track created by Laurent Perez del Mar. It will feel truly arrived on my list when it debuts on the Castro Theatre's repertory calendar, where it should be paired with an entry from the classic Disney era, from the mid-1930s Snow White to the mid-60s, when Uncle Walt left us wanting so much more. (Opens Friday at the AMC Metreon.)