Kubo and the Two Strings | Little White Lies

Kubo and the Two Strings

15 Aug 2016

A helmeted figure wielding a sword, against a dark, atmospheric background with a glowing sun-like symbol above.
A helmeted figure wielding a sword, against a dark, atmospheric background with a glowing sun-like symbol above.
3

Anticipation.

The fourth feature from the stop-motion masters behind Coraline and Paranorman.

5

Enjoyment.

Technically masterful and full of heart.

4

In Retrospect.

A touching expression of loss, worth repeat viewings for its poetic visuals alone.

Lai­ka Stu­dios may have deliv­ered their mas­ter­piece with this stag­ger­ing stop-motion fable.

If you must blink, do it now.” So begins Kubo and the Two Strings, the lat­est stop-motion gem from Lai­ka Enter­tain­ment. It’s fair warn­ing — to look away for even a moment would be to miss out on one of the most visu­al­ly arrest­ing and care­ful­ly craft­ed films in recent memory.

In a small vil­lage in ancient Japan, a young boy called Kubo (Art Parkin­son) lives with his ail­ing moth­er. With his trusty samisen, a tra­di­tion­al three-stringed instru­ment, Kubo pos­sess­es the extra­or­di­nary abil­i­ty to bring paper to life. (By the way, with­out giv­ing any­thing away, it’s no mis­take that there are only two strings’ in the film’s title). He con­jures tiny samu­rais and ser­pents to bat­tle in origa­mi-sized epics for the towns­peo­ple. And at home, his paper char­ac­ters act out his mother’s sto­ries about his late father, a leg­endary warrior.

There’s an absolute­ly riv­et­ing sequence where fall­en leaves trans­form into wil­lowy fig­ures, hov­er and drift into focus as Kubo ani­mates the sto­ry of how his par­ents met. Grace­ful 3D flour­ish­es give his mag­ic a hyp­not­ic qual­i­ty. Ear­ly on, how­ev­er, it’s clear Kubo’s true pow­er lies in his skill as a sto­ry­teller. It is his abil­i­ty to build sus­pense, cre­ate con­flict, break ten­sion with humour and hold an audi­ence cap­tive that makes him strong. Like­wise, Laika’s syn­the­sis of stop-motion and spare com­put­er gen­er­at­ed graph­ics nev­er over­shad­ows the film’s thought­ful­ly plot­ted beats.

After Kubo acci­den­tal­ly sum­mons venge­ful spir­its who destroy his vil­lage, he sets out on a quest with new­found com­pan­ions Mon­key (Char­l­ize Theron) and Bee­tle (Math­ew McConaugh­ey). The three unlike­ly heroes bat­tle giant skele­tons and brave vio­lent seas, but Kubo strug­gles most with what it means to lose a loved one. Death is con­sid­ered rev­er­ent­ly. Sep­a­rat­ed from his moth­er, Kubo longs for the father he nev­er had the chance to know, but whose absence he feels more than anything.

The film doesn’t shy away from the weight of his loss. His grief sings in the space between sharply chore­o­graphed action sequences. At one point, the cam­era observes a sin­gle tear slip down Kubo’s deft­ly mod­elled cheek. It hangs for a moment on his chin before falling to the ground. There’s an organ­ic trem­ble to the move­ment, almost as if the med­dling of an animator’s care­ful fin­gers instilled in it some­thing aching­ly human.

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