Two years ago the English-speaking internet world was shaken by the news that Japan¡¯s most beloved animation house, Studio Ghibli, would be closing its doors for good. The story, which originated from a fan blog and was picked up by a variety of more reputable outlets that should¡¯ve known better, quickly proved to be erroneous ¡ª the product of an overzealous translation of remarks made by one of Ghibli¡¯s co-founders, producer Toshio Suzuki.
Yet it wasn¡¯t so clear what Suzuki had meant when he talked about the company taking a ¡°break¡± from anime production following the release of Hiromasa Yonebayashi¡¯s 2014 film, ¡°When Marnie Was There.¡± With the studio¡¯s one surefire box-office draw, Hayao Miyazaki, now officially retired and its staff of full-time animators disbanded, did it even have a future?
¡°The Red Turtle¡± offers an answer to that question, though it¡¯s a potentially misleading one. The first film since 2014 to bear the Studio Ghibli imprimatur is an outlier in the company¡¯s oeuvre: an international co-production helmed by a Dutch director, animated in France, and delivered entirely without dialogue.
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