TL;DR: 10/10. Unique and captivating, visually stunning, beautiful wordless story about the existential loneliness, relationships, family, generations, life, love, aspirations, desires, understanding, - people. The movie “The Red Turtle” is neither your average cartoon nor anime. It is not your typical Studio Ghibli movie either and not even a Studio Ghibli movie per se. Instead, it’s a collaborative work between multiple production companies. Co-written by French and Dutch writers, and produced by Japanese Studio Ghibli, German studio Wild Bunch, and French studio Why Not Productions. Which on its own, makes it a unique piece of art.

TL;DR: 9/10. Nice science fiction movie about the importance of clear communication and mutual understanding in the context of learning a language. Drama & love substory included. The movie tells the aliens’ arrival story, but it’s not your typical “aliens” invasion. Twelve extraterrestrial spaceships arrive at a set of distant locations across the globe and are just sitting hovering there. Of course, the government agencies of the “host” countries are closing territories for an investigation. The story centered around an expert linguist researcher Louise Banks who is invited to establish meaningful contact with the newcomers. And it turns out to be a life-changing, perception-shuttering, moving-to-the-new-step-of-evolution contact for both humankind and our heroine. There is a love substory (of course!), it doesn’t take too much attention on itself and feels reasonably natural.

TL;DR: 6.5/10. Great start, excellent adventure, great humor (mostly concentrated in the first half of the book), very well written, but an unrealistic and much weaker ending. Human is a real bipedal life form of midrange intelligence, living a largely deluded existence on a small, waterlogged planet in a very lonely corner of the universe.

Warming yourself up with the delicious hot tea under the Milky Way at the top of the crag, after a short hike up through the dark mountain forest, is a special treat.