Japanese director Mamoru Hosoda recently gave an interview to the French newspaper Agence France-Presse (AFP), right after his new film Belle was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. During the interview the author also talked about Hayao Miyazaki, spoke very critical words to him and to those of the Studio Ghibli films.
According to reports, Hosoda appears to have a problem with the way Ghibli and Miyazaki portray women, and particularly with that kind of “holiness of the female character” that is always present in the studio’s films. Hosoda spoke of a “great master of Japanese animation who always chooses young girls as protagonists“comments the”probably the reason for this is that he is a little little self-confident personThe writer also said he was seriously concerned about the way women are portrayed in these films and stated that he “doesn’t want to be part of this world”.
“One look at one of these films is enough to see how young girls are belittled and not taken seriously“Hosoda went on, then explained that he tries to avoid this kind of” holiness “and” virtue of innocence “in his films. portray the protagonists as normal people, sometimes suppressed, belittled, or depressed like everyone else.
Mamoru Hosoda has a history with Studio Ghibli. The writer worked for the studio and directed several films in the early 2000s, and in 2004 he was selected to direct Howl’s Moving Castle. Shortly thereafter, the author decided to give up the project because of too much pressure.
In all cases, Hosoda managed to find his measure in the years that followed, Mirai received an Oscar nomination and had excellent sales with Belle, his new film now available in Japanese theaters.
