Belle in short is the Citizen Kane of animation. I know as I have watched all things animation. Whether it be common films like Disney to the obscure like Brothers Quay. Belle is the closest we get to a contemporary Fantasia, and I say this because the negatives I have seen come from people who expect a more narrative and musical approach such as Disney’s own take of Beauty and the Beast.

Instead, like Fantasia, is an experimental art piece that combines 2D and 3D animation very well. The music have an reoccurring motif throughout the film, heighten greatly based on the emotional mindset of Suzu. The movie is really about life, death, trauma and love. And like those things, it comes episodic in real life (which a lot of people fail to even realize that), but there is always that underlying narrative that pushes us. It is something we experienced in our own lives, especially at a time where social media is prevalent, helping us to escape those factors, but the drive is there when we face the music in real life. The visuals are absolutely stunning, the music is beautiful and often haunting, and the characters are down to Earth. They are realistic people that you rarely see in a lot of animation today.