The last time I saw this film, it was on the very last session of the very last day it was showing in any cinema in my city. The cinema was packed with little kids, barely a single seat empty. (I’ve never been in packed cinema on the last day of a film’s run. It’s a rather surreal experience.) The thing is, this can be a very quiet film at times, one that rewards observation, and I thought it might be stretching the attention of really young kids. Then the film began, and I was surprised to discover that in the silent sequences the children were equally quiet. Kubo and the Two Strings is captivating in the fullest sense of the word.
The tale itself is a familiar one—an adolescent boy must go on a quest to collect three MacGuffins to defeat the villain—but the way it tells that story is the real magic of it.
Context is everything.
LAIKA animation studios have a bit of a reputation for being a little creepy and skewing a little older than your average family animated film. That’s certainly the case here, but there’s so much more to it than that. This is a film that deals with death, the value of family, and the value of beauty. And for a film about beauty, Kubo and the Two Strings is gorgeous. It explores so many different shades and dimensions of beauty—beauty in all its wondrous imperfection. This is a story about how even our scars can be beautiful.
In today’s cinematic landscape, with so many perfect CGI films, the lopsided approach of LAIKA is a welcome relief. Kubo has crooked teeth! You’ve no idea how happy that makes me. Most importantly though, this is the sort of film that only LAIKA could make. Anyone else would’ve pulled their punches, but LAIKA commits to a story with real stakes and consequences.
Do you remember in The Incredibles when Helen Parr tells her children, ‘Remember the bad guys on the shows you used to watch on Saturday mornings? Well, these guys aren’t like those guys. They won’t exercise restraint because you are children. They will kill you if they get the chance. Do not give them that chance.’ And then for the rest of the movie, the Incredibles run around and save they day in heroic fashion . . . but you can feel the director protecting them from any real danger. Despite Helen’s warnings, you know the Parr family exists in a protective bubble.
Kubo is not that kind of movie. The opening scene alone makes this abundantly clear. The infant Kubo loses an eye and his mother, Sariatu, suffers head trauma that permanently damages her. And this is not cosmetic damage either. They carry their wounds with them daily, and live with them as best the can. It’s especially touching to see Kubo care for his mother even when she doesn’t recognize him.
I also liked how the characters are defined by their movement, especially Sariatu. This is an important part of any animated film, but Kubo and the Two Strings made such powerful use of it. During the day, Sariatu is still to the point of evoking genuine concern, yet each evening she comes to life and glides around the cave in which she and Kubo live. The contrast makes it all the sadder when the fire goes out of her eyes and she becomes blank and still again.
The filmmakers took great care to describe Kubo’s daily life and the world around him before his adventure begins. Each detail is carefully chosen to compliment the story’s ultimate ending and its overarching themes. When Kubo tells his stories about Hanzo’s adventure to the local villagers, we’re learning everything we need to understand the course of the rest of the story, but this is made all the more powerful as we discover Kubo tells these stories as a way to connect with his dead father, to understand him in some way.
Continued belowOK, talking around spoilers is becoming a terrible nuisance. Consider this your spoiler warning.
I’ve read so many books and seen so many films and TV shows with a lead that’s told not to do something, but they do it anyway. They have no choice, really, because the plot needs them to do this something in order for the inciting incident to happen. In this case, Kubo has to stay out after dark. And you can see the setup coming a mile away. In most stories, I find these sequences tiresome to get through, like a paint-by-numbers sequence. This is not the case in Kubo, though it easily could have been. It’s easy to imagine a version of this story where Kubo stays out after dark to partake in the festival he’s missed out on his whole life. That’s the obvious conflict, and every kid can understand wanting to go to a party, but the film appeals to a deeper need. Kubo can’t resist the chance to talk to his dead father, and he needs to talk to someone about his mother and his fear that she’s slipping further and further away. Yes, Kubo makes a mistake staying out after dark, breaking the promise he made his mother, and yet it’s not a foolish mistake. He’s in such a vulnerable emotional state, his actions simply makes sense.
In short, the film dived headfirst into a common trope, and yet weathered it magnificently simply by being emotionally honest. At it’s core, that’s why this film works, because it invests foremost in the needs and feelings of its characters. They’re never just going through the motions.
How am I this far into this review without talking about Monkey yet? Monkey’s the best character in the film. She’s fierce and loyal,and she gets all the best lines, voiced to perfection by Charlize Theron. Best of all, she’s a character that grows on repeat viewings.
The same can be said for many of the characters, actually. Take Kubo’s aunts for example. On a second viewing, they are more than just the lieutenants of the evil pursuing Kubo, they a window into the past, showing what Sariatu had once been.
The visual storytelling is what blows me away the most in this film though. Things like when Kubo sweeps his mother’s hair back behind her ear in the morning, and when he returns at sunset, her hair is in exactly the same position—she literally hasn’t moved at all. Or the way blue is used to express the influence of the Moon King even when he isn’t present, and orange is used to show the bonds between friends and family. Or the way when Kubo returns to the house of his birth, he sees a portrait of his family, and the baby Kubo is shown in profile with the left side of his face on display, showing a time when he and his family were still whole.
Or later, when everything is taken from him and this anguish is expressed by showing Kubo silently in profile, again from the left, no eye visible at all. The lighting in this film is absolutely stunning.
The level of detail in this is so incredible, I feel like I need to do a viewing just to pay attention to the composition of shots, and another just to fully take in the way color is used.
Dario Marianelli, a favorite composer of mine since I first heard his work in Pride & Prejudice, outdid himself with this score. The shamisen is the heart and soul of the film, and so it was only proper that it became the core of the film’s score as well. The final track before the end credits is perhaps one of the most perfect ending pieces I’ve had the pleasure to hear. It’s unfinished, leaving the final word for Kubo himself.
Look, it’s late November, and Kubo and the Two Strings is still the best film I’ve seen all year—and by no small measure either. It’s now available on Blu-Ray and for digital download. Check it out. It’s absolutely worth a watch and a rewatch or two as well.