dir. by Travis Knight
Laika's work in stop motion has always been fairly prestigious. Films like Coraline and ParaNorman received no shortage of critical acclaim, their unconventional form of craft often being placed among such great studios as Ghibli and Pixar. In films like the aforementioned, the studio's craft often complemented the films' disturbing visuals, creating films which, while not strictly horror, were able to construct a fairly unsettling tone in the former and an effective genre homage in the latter. Kubo is in some ways a departure, taking the form of a sweeping epic journey more akin to a fantasy film than their earlier works, but this change in tone is revelatory, because Kubo and the Two Strings is the surest realization of their craft to date and stands a good chance of going down as their masterpiece.
Kubo (voiced by Art Parkinson) is a young half-blind boy who lives in a cave just outside of a Japanese town with his traumitized mother. Every day, he travels down to the town and tells a story, strumming his shamisen to magically manipulate origami figures to play out scenes from the tale. However, each day he returns before sundown, meaning that he never is able to complete the story. The reason is simple: his father was killed to protect him from the evil Moon King, and if Kubo stays out after dark, he will be spotted, and the Moon King's daughters - Kubo's aunts, voiced by Rooney Mara - will find him and attempt to take his one remaining eye. Inevitably, this happens, as he is lured out by the chance of speaking to his father's spirit in the village's Obon Festival. He escapses, but at great cost, and soon he's sent off to retrieve three pieces of magical samurai gear he mentions in his story in order to defeat the Moon King.
It's not an entirely unfamiliar premise, though much like last year's summer animated masterpiece Inside Out, the tropes which form the skeleton serve mainly as a conduit for the depth, humour, and emotion of the film. The script is moving and heartfelt, truthful and profound, but it's also filled with frequently effective comic relief. One or two jokes are a little too lowbrow, and there's the occasional predictable plot beat, but it's all expressed with such wonder and ingenuity as to disguise any such weaknesses. Themes of memory, storytelling, family and the virtues of mortality are all explored in great depth even with the film's relatively conventional elements, and a persistent sense of wonder keeps the film feeling fresh and unique.
Kubo himself is a storyteller, but the telling of stories is a constant theme throughout the film. Kubo and the Two Strings is in some ways a story about storytelling, and often the references to storytelling are tied to memory. Kubo's mother (voiced by Charlize Theron) can't remember the ending to the story of Kubo's father, while a later character, a samurai warped into a beetle-like form, is suffering from amnesia and has a memory of his past life brought out by a character from one of Kubo's stories. Any character's memory shown within a story is a story within itself, but storytelling is also the most significant way in which we remember others, a concept which the film never loses sight of.
The Moon King is very early noted to be Kubo's grandfather, and through that relationship the film considers the nature of family. Family is never explored out of direct biological connections, but such connections alone aren't enough to form family. Kubo prefers those close to him over his extended family, favouring the family he has actually known to the family he is merely informed of.
The Moon King is also the conduit for the film's most blatant theme, that of mortality vs. divinity. This mostly arises late in the film, but unlike the other main ideas, it's hard to miss. Kubo takes on a fairly negative view of the divine: the Moon King and Kubo's aunts are depicted as actively antagonistic, bordering on evil, and when the Moon King is finally given something resembling a motive, it only demonstrates that he is out of touch with the values of humanity. This is very much a film about the virtues of being mortal, of being a human being on this imperfect world, and even if it's not subtle about it, that theme is no less resonant than the others.
The Japanese period setting, though borrowed from a foreign culture, is livened up with a great deal of respect for the cultural ideas which make up the film's world. This added dimension backs up each of the main thematic ideas and is well-supported by the animation's incredible attention to detail. At this point, Laika's ability to merge CG with their trademark stop-motion animation has become dazzlingly smooth, incorporating new technologies for details and sweeping visual creations which are stunning to behold. There's the faint impression of a wall stroll-esque art style, and the 3D models pop out against the painterly backdrops, especially in 3D. Subtle touches back up the film's humanity, and the absurd level of emotion conveyed through these details is nothing short of magic. Never does Kubo not look absolutely stunning.
The quality of the animation works wonders for the action scenes, which are rare but always exciting. Each new monster to be introduced is terrifying in its own way, reflecting Laika's pedigree, but the stakes are always kept personal even in spite of these scenes' immense scale. Only on occasion does the action interrupt the emotional arc of the story, and even then the film never grinds to a halt, maintaining a strong pace which is thoughtful and never too quick but which also continuously moves forward and never drags.
A film of this quality would be stunning even in a relatively strong movie season, so it stands out all the more in as brutally dry a season as summer 2016. Kubo serves as the light at the end of the tunnel, easily the best film of the summer at the very least. Thematically deep, gorgeously animated, well-written, funny, and emotional, this is a sprawling masterwork which is truthful and complex without sacrificing its epic scale or emotional heft. A film which can balance artfulness and wide appeal is a rare feat, and yet, here is a film that makes it seem effortless, commanding your attention while reaching out to your heart.
10/10
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