Suzume
Composite Score: 82.37
Starring: Nanoka Hara/Nichole Sakura, Hokuto Matsumura/Josh Keaton, Eri Fukatsu/Jennifer Sun Bell, and Ann Yamane/Lena Josephine Marano
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Writer: Makoto Shinkai
Genres: Animation, Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Coming of Age
MPAA Rating: PG for action/peril, language, thematic elements, and smoking
Box Office: $132.18 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Suzume is Makoto Shinkai’s film about a high school girl (Suzume) who teams up with a young stranger (Souta) to stop earthquakes across Japan that are being caused by open doors that are allowing a supernatural worm to enter our world from the “Ever-After”, a place for souls after death. Like most of Shinkai’s films, this one features excellent animation, dynamic characters, and a creative blend of the supernatural and real worlds. In particular, Suzume addresses the problems that come when we fail to address our past, utilizing both Suzume’s character arc and the broader existential threat of the worm to give the audience time to dwell on the ways that ignoring the past can bring harm to the present world. It also addresses themes of duty, family, societal fear, and grief across its nation-spanning narrative. The film received a nomination for Best Animated Feature from the Golden Globes and has been heralded as one of the better anime films released in the last couple of years.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
Suzume is probably the least intimate and most whimsical of Shintai’s recent (famous) films – the others being Weathering with You and Your Name. – so if you’re looking for those emotionally devastating stories of self-discovery, you might find yourself less than fully fulfilled. He still explores the concept of self-knowledge and plays around with emotional undertones, but most of the film’s richness lies more in its overarching plot and creative character designs, where Suzume’s character development feels more like the embellishment added to polish the whole piece off. It doesn’t make for a bad or unfulfilling film, and, indeed, I think this belongs among the most fun and original animated films of the decade so far, but its emotional highs and lows just aren’t quite at the level of some of the other films in its genre or from the director.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
All of Shinkai’s films feature beautiful stills and animation, and Suzume is no different. Where the animation continues to impress and exceed expectations, though, is in the bold choices that he has made in crafting this near-reality world where the story takes place. Obviously, the modern Japan is the primary setting for the film, but the characters that populate the film’s central story hardly look like characters you’d see in a modern setting, outside of Suzume and her aunt. The mystical cat Daijin looks to fill the role of cute sidekick at first but quickly morphs into something more sinister and then more endearing as the story progresses. It’s a familiar character design made more complex by the story choices that Shinkai has made. Likewise, all of Souta’s designs feel like something from another world. When he is introduced to the audience and Suzume, walking along the road looking for ruins, he looks more like a character that’s stepped out of the pages of a samurai manga than an animated version of a modern Japanese college student. Then (SPOILER ALERT) when he’s transformed into a chair, the new design feels like something entirely new for Shinkai, straying close to Miyazaki/Ghibli territory while keeping it somehow grounded within the fantasy reality of his own story. It shouldn’t work, but somehow it does with great emotional and thematic impact because of the importance of the chair to Suzume, regardless of its status as Souta’s new body. By crafting these fun bits of fantasy and whimsy, Shinkai gives his audience an escapist look at his themes of growing up by facing yourself and your past, offering a story that keeps us engaged with character, theme, and plot in abundance.
The exploration of more fantastical characters and plot in Suzume makes it a welcome addition to Shinkai’s filmography, still inviting the audience to know themselves more deeply but in a fresh package that’s sure to cement its place among the Greatest Films of All Time. The deviations from the filmmaker’s familiar system from his two most recent films might not be what all of his fans are looking for, but it’s refreshing for a broader audience to get a different look at what he has to offer in still excellent packaging. You can currently stream this film with a Crunchyroll subscription or rent it on Vudu if you’d like to check it out soon.
