It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present.

Do you believe that someone out of the past can enter and take possession of a living being?

We may be true with the past, but the past is not through with us.

Welcome back to the next picture show, a movie the week podcast devoted to a classic film and the way it's shaped our thoughts on a recent release.

I'm Tasha Robinson, here again with Scott Tobias, Keith Phipps, and Genevieve Koski.

As we said last week, we're making some changes to the podcast for 2022, so you won't hear our usual round-robin of recommendations

at the end of this episode. But you will hear the usual second half of our weekly discussion

as we talk about a new movie that has some things in common with the classic picture we talked

about last week, Kirk Wise and Gary Truesdale's Beauty and the Beast. Mamara Housada's

Bell is the latest take on the classic fairy tale.

And initially, it seems like it's aimed at being a relatively traditional version of the story,

apart from moving the action from a fantasy setting into a science fiction one,

with half the action taking place in a fully immersive virtual reality world called You.

But Hussata, the writer-director of anime movies like Summer Wars,

the Girl Who Lept Through Time,

and the Oscar-nominated Marai, is just as interested in the real world.

In the U reality, the title character, Belle, is a beloved pop diva, one of the most famous forces of the world.

In reality, though, she's a shy high schooler named Suzu, who's still struggling with grief

over the mother she lost in childhood.

Susu's friends and home life play a much bigger role in this version of the story than they do for

her Disney counterparts. And what seems like it could be a swooning romance with the monstrous beast,

the scourge of you, turns into something very different. What's the thought of getting at with

...