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Filmmaker Mamoru Hosoda showcases a well-known fascination with time-travel narratives. The storyteller behind beloved films such as The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Mirai, and Belle weaves fantastical epics where characters traverse not only time but also parallel dimensions. His most recent movie, Scarlet, is certainly in that same vein.

A Fallen Purgatory

Set to arrive in American cinemas soon, this fresh take of William Shakespeare's Hamlet charts the story of Princess Scarlet, a fallen warrior sent to a purgatorial “Otherworld” following her failure to retaliate against her father’s assassination by her uncle, Claudius. Accompanied by Hijiri, a first responder from present-day Japan whose kindness challenges her thirst for vengeance, Scarlet navigates surreal war zones, confronting ghostly soldiers, cyclical enmity, and the danger of the “Void” as she pursues forgiveness and a route home.

“The world’s state of the world following the coronavirus” and “the idea that people can’t forgive these days” are issues that “bring a lot of worry,” the filmmaker remarked.

It goes without saying, Hosoda does more than enough to adapt this Elizabethan story distinctive. However, what really makes Scarlet unique is how the director merges his usual template with this timeless narrative of retribution to champion global harmony.

Forgiveness in a Cynical World

In the character of Scarlet, Hosoda portrays a refusal to forgive, a stance that in her particular situation, those feelings seem entirely justified. As Scarlet ultimately confronts Claudius, she has to decide between embracing vengeance or embarking on a life without revenge.

Countless individuals still haven’t recovered from the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its legacy has created a planet deeply divided. Therefore, those who came of age during the pandemic, that matured during lockdowns, has become markedly pessimistic. Hosoda states that Scarlet is “a positive message to the younger generation,” pointing out that the way Hamlet illustrates the cyclical nature of revenge is “still relevant today.”

A King's Crucial Command

However, the primary divergence between Scarlet and the work that inspired it lies in what each protagonist's father tells them. In Hamlet, the ghost of King Hamlet encourages his son to seek vengeance, while the dying wish of the king in Scarlet are a heartfelt appeal for his daughter to grant pardon.

“It’s a confusing directive because after everything that happened to her family,” Hosoda comments. “She wonders how it can be so easy to forgive. The question facing Scarlet is how to deal with the anger, how to forgive. There are many correlations to our current geo-political landscape, and I wanted that represented in the screenplay.”

While Shakespeare’s play follows its protagonist's slide into insanity, Hosoda aimed to offer a uplifting journey. Hosoda highlights direct parallels between Scarlet and modern young people — their unfiltered hope, their righteous fury, their difficulty to find understanding in a divided world.

A Relevant Beacon

A lot of today's entertainment amplifies pessimism, but Scarlet cuts through it with stunning animation and a rare glimmer of hope. It edges toward camp, but its core idea hits home: a refreshed classic with something urgent and honest to say.

In the end, a collective desire among people to figure it out “because of the cost of war.” Through the quest of Princess Scarlet, Hosoda offers not a pat solution, but a vision of a way ahead rooted in forgiveness as opposed to ceaseless conflict.