Quick Thoughts on 'The Red Turtle'

The Red Turtle by Michael Dudok de Wit is a story about a man trapped on an island and his journey through fate, love, regret, survival, fatherhood, luck and ultimately death. I would describe the story as magical instead of realistic for many reasons such as the red turtle turns into a woman and then back into a turtle, their son knows how to swim most instantly after falling into the water, all three of them survive a tough storm where the funniest part is that none of them knew that a storm was about hit despite the fact that the man had spent a majority of his lifetime on the island and should have understood the basic pattern of the weather, the son decides to leave the island to go with the turtles which in all reality doesn’t really happen. We can relate to the scene when the man gets scared in the bamboo forest as he feels that he cannot escape this island anymore and has to spend the rest of his life here. He is upset, restless and helpless as he is not satisfied with his situation and believes that there is something out there better than this island. He is frightened that nature will destroy him and feels unsafe on the island, establishing the central concept of man vs nature. We can relate to his fears because of we the viewers, just like him, are always unsatisfied and therefore cannot accept our situation (which is the ultimate way of releasing all fear, even the fear of death). Throughout the film, the director kept us on the edge of seats as the man struggled to fight death in order to survive for something the better. The most impactful scene pertaining to death was when the man falls into the cliff hole and in the water, with very slight chances of escape. He cannot climb the walls as they are too tall and slippery, and the rocks have only provided a narrow passageway, a chance that the man has to take in order for survival. Apart from this, the only other scene pertaining to death arises when the tsunami hits the island, washing away the entire bamboo forest and more. In this scene, we think that the man wouldn’t survive but surprising he does and his found in a very vulnerable condition. The funny part is that nature brings him so close to death and then provides a hand for survival (the man is latching on to a bamboo stick floating in the water after the tsunami). Moments of light humour persisted throughout the film. The crabs were my particular favourite characters. They lightened the mood of the story when they crawled onto the boat with the man, or when they took food from the man or even when they played around with the son as a baby. Light conditions pertaining to the weather were overemphasized in order to create the mood of the moment. Bright sunlight casts a shadow of the figures swimming in the shallow water; providing a peaceful, relaxing and accepting kind of moment. Dark grey skies simply meant trouble or conflict between man and nature. Sunrise was beginnings and sunsets meant that the character found their answer to the next step they had to take/conclusion to their current issue or problem. The son, being an amalgamation of the mother and father was definitely superior to the previous generation. The mother was a turtle and the son, therefore, had qualities of both the turtle and human; grew up knowing both water and land extremely well. He is also superior to the previous generation as he has accepting nature to its fullest from an early age, much earlier than when his dad did. I was most impressed by the way the emotions were conveyed in a no dialogue film. The characters like the rest of the film primarily consisted of solid colours with minimal line work to define the movement. The eyes were defined by two dots while the nose and mouth were two small lines respectively. Yet, all the features like the rest of the body moved so eloquently to express the responses of the characters. The scene that best describes this is when the man and woman are sitting on the beach for the first time together and the man is trying to apologize for his behaviour earlier (when he hits the turtle turned woman with a stick). The music of the film complimented the visuals of the film very well as the underlying sounds existed but could not be felt throughout the film. There is a culture where the child embodies greater values from the mother than the father. In that aspect, the son ended up beings more like the turtles than the man. The explicit meaning of the film is that one should be content with what he/she has rather than seeking for more. The man wasn’t happy in his environment and couldn’t see the beauty around him on the island until the turtle turned woman showed it to him. The implicit meaning is man vs nature where both forces are pushing against each other for most of the film when instead they go hand in hand.