In Mamoru Hosoda’s “Scarlet,” hand-drawn animation dances with computer graphics, creating a tapestry as poetic as its Shakespearean roots. Inspired by “Hamlet,” this modern tale trades vengeance for healing, reframing tragedy as a journey toward forgiveness. “There’s that very famous line, ‘To be or not to be,’ and I tried to imagine what that same question would look like in today’s words and visual expression,” says the writer-director. As Scarlet (Mana Ashida) is pulled into the Outerworld, a realm between life and death, she finds an unlikely ally in EMT Hijiri (Masaki Okada) — and a landscape shaped by religious iconography depicting heaven and hell. “What the research told me is that perhaps those places are an extension of our own world,” Hosoda says. “With ‘Scarlet,’ I imagined this world as a continuation of reality where life and death aren’t opposing but an extension of one another.” The story’s emotional climax, the crescendo of his bold answer to Shakespeare’s soliloquy, is drenched in golden hues to underscore a life or death choice. “When Scarlet gains something, she also loses something,” Hosoda explains. “And the question I was trying to ask is: ‘What are you going to choose and what are you going to let go of?’ ”
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