The premise within kicks off with a simple set-up; a man is marooned at sea and finds his way to an island, which he immediately tries to leave by way of a hand-made raft. However, something in the ocean keeps destroying his rafts time after time again and he eventually discovers what kind of entity is behind all of this sabotage behind his boat....it's a giant red turtle. From there, we follow the man as he confronts the turtle in a vengeful rage, then watch this same man fall in love with a woman with whom he starts a family that consists of the duo and their son. When he was first lost at sea, this man may have thought he was doomed to a quickly forthcoming death, but it turns his life and the lives of his loved ones are going on on this island.
If you want an 81 minute demonstration on why we need to bring back hand-drawn animation as a pervasively prevalent artform in theatrical animated cinema, look no further than the astounding visual prowess constantly on display in The Red Turtle. There is some truly outstanding work done in making the underwater scenes so beautiful and there's numerous choices made in the designs of the characters that show a tremendous amount of thought on the part of the animators. The humans, for example, carry simplified designs with black-button eyes that, to me personally, recalled the way humans were always drawn by Herge.
By contrast to the way the humans look, the animals on the island are animated in a realistic manner, particularly in their movements. These are not stylized critters that have some hints of personification in their designs, but rather, an intentional attempt to make the marooned man feel more out of place in the surroundings he's been forced into since he's a notably stylistic departure from the beings who are already existing on this island. Going for more down-to-Earth choices in the way the animals look too adds a note of uncertainty to the scene where the man meets the Red Turtle for the first time; since the turtle has a blank expression on his face, it's hard to gather if he's a friend or foe in this moment, putting the audience in the very same mindset of uncertainty that the marooned man is going through in his psyche.
Even while heaping all that praise upon the animation in The Red Turtle, it's still truly remarkable to stand back and realize how successfully the animators are able to get across Michael Dudok de Wit and Pascale Ferran's screenplay in a visual format without the aid of words being spoken. To boot, this is all done in an animation style that carries a heavy emphasis on restraint. This even applies to the lead human characters, who, while being given a slightly more stylized physical appearance do not go about constantly doing exaggerated facial expressions or over-the-top physical gestures to convey their inner thoughts or desires.
Instead, they stick within the subdued atmosphere of The Red Turtle, allowing the animators to garner an incredible amount of emotional potency out of the tiniest movements or gestures. The pathos in this plot become only more engrossing as we follow our lead character and his family decades into their existence, the passage of time being felt by both the trio of main characters and the audience. Once those final scenes arrive, it's pretty apparent that the work delivered in The Red Turtle by director Michael Dudok de Wit and his incredible team is something that's just as beautiful to look at as it is to contemplate.
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