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Kogonada reveals that his ambitious new film, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, was clearly influenced by anime.
Posted in: Movies, Sony | Tagged: A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, sony
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey Director Found Inspiration from Anime
Kogonada reveals that his ambitious new film, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, was clearly influenced by anime.
Article Summary
- Kogonada’s A Big Bold Beautiful Journey draws direct inspiration from classic anime and Hayao Miyazaki.
- The film features an original score by Joe Hisaishi, famed for his Studio Ghibli collaborations.
- Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell embark on a magical, memory-filled road trip that blends realism with fantasy.
- This ambitious film stands out as an original, emotionally rich big-screen event from Sony Pictures.
Imaginative, immersive, and rather emotional, Kogonada's new film A Big Bold Beautiful Journey wears its heart (and its influences) on its sleeve. In fact, the filmmaker has even confirmed that the movie was heavily shaped by anime, which you can consistently feel in the film's heightened tenderness. Now, when specifically diving into that topic during a conversation with Collider, he traced that lineage directly to masters like Hayao Miyazaki, as well as the film's score by Joe Hisaishi, the legendary Studio Ghibli collaborator who uses the film to make a rare jump to a Western live-action feature. Here's what we learned.
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey Director Breaks Down the Film's Anime Influence
As Kogonada explains to the outlet, "Anime was a huge part of this film. When we were in pre-production with Benjamin [Loeb] and Katie [Byron], the production designer and my DP, we had all our influences. I've never had this little window where we're, like, 'An anime is going to be an influence.' Because I was really interested in it, and I had been watching a ton of anime with my youngest son, and we watched all of Miyazaki, but the way in which, like a musical, artifice can profoundly be moving in a way that is unexpected. And I found myself watching anime in tears." The director later adds that when Hisaishi signed on for the score, he felt like he "had entered some magical door, and I was like, 'What the…? Of course. Yes!' I could not believe it."
In terms of its story, the film pairs two strangers, David (Colin Farrell) and Sarah (Margot Robbie), for a magical road trip-esque adventure through formative memories, blending quiet, human-scale drama with rich visuals. It's essentially a romantic fantasy that toggles between realism and the surreal as the duo revisit key waypoints of their lives, a structure that many have likened to a modern, tech-age take on It's a Wonderful Life. Fortunately, whether you come for Robbie and Farrell's star pairing or for Kogonada's precise, patient direction, the film pushes for something increasingly rare in studio cinema: a big-screen original event that isn't afraid to lean into its capacity for feelings.
If that sounds like it complements your style, Kogonada's A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is now playing in theaters courtesy of Sony Pictures.
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