Is Makoto Shinkai still referred to by some as ‘the New Miyazaki’? Shinkai disputes the comparison, to his credit -perhaps understanding it seems to stem more from just the general popularity of his films (his last three of which have all been massive hits in Japan -as big as any Disney movie here), than any real connection in art, themes, or style. In fact Shinkai’s movies typically are beholden to more than a few of those conventions of modern anime that once led to Miyazaki dismissing the entire art form as “a mistake”. He’s not pushing its’ storytelling boundaries the way contemporaries like Mamoru Hosoda and Sunao Katabuchi are, exceedingly gorgeous though much of his work is.
Still, he’s a curious artist with a distinct style, and his methods have worked out great for him with audiences -including on this latest movie Suzume, currently the fourth highest-grossing anime film worldwide (just behind his own Your Name and Spirited Away). Like several of his previous films it combines popular tenets of coming-of-age romance with world-shaking fantasy-adventure elements, in this case a giant monster worm from another dimension, invisible to most, that causes earthquakes when it enters our reality through unlocked portals. Suzume, a teenager from Kyushu, gets involved in the quest to stop this creature when she sees it in the sky and meets a mysterious man Sōta, whose task it is to find and lock the doors across Japan through which the worm travels. An encounter with a mischievous sprite of a tiny magical cat results in Sōta being transmogrified into Suzume’s childhood kiddie chair.
And that is how he remains for most of the rest of the movie: trapped as a little wooden chair with one leg missing and two holes on the back that at first appear aesthetic but we later learn were actually carved to look like eyes. I’ll give props to Shinkai, it’s a bold choice, especially with the conventional sexy human model there on the poster and in the advertising. It’s almost a troll kind of move -a mockery of that Pixar conceit of anthropomorphizing anything (though Pixar’s upcoming Elemental seems to be inadvertently doing a better job of that). But it does also really test the limits of this movie’s sincerity, a movie that comes with a whole host of dramatic and emotional beats that now at least in some capacity revolve around a little chair that seems to exist as such mostly for the unique animation possibilities. The actual emotional investment Suzume has to the chair, separate from Sōta, feels very reverse-engineered and unbelievable (it’s too plain-looking for any kid to be honestly that taken with); and as the avatar of her love interest and mystic guide it’s hard not to be amused even where the storytelling is the most earnest. There are scenes where Sōta is delivering important exposition or talking seriously with Suzume where the shot is focused on its’ blank motionless substitute for a face, and it just comes off as goofy.
It’s not that inanimate objects can’t work as characters, especially in anime (hell, one of my favourites is Kino’s Journey where one of the lead characters is a motorbike). But Suzume doesn’t do enough to earn the leaps in resonance it attempts through this plot device. Something like Kino’s Journey benefits from being set within a universe of parable, but Suzume attempts to ground itself as much as possible in relatable contexts of modern Japan. And because we see so little of Sōta before his transformation, there’s not enough to build a cogent relationship with Suzume -and that simply cannot be achieved when he is stripped of any cognizant humanity, only the barest of sentience, for so much of the story. The tiny kitten, who is the manifestation of a keystone needed to keep the monster at a bay -for much of the movie an antagonist in a nice subversion of the cute feline sidekick trope; even it has at least the necessary visual features that an audience can engage with.
The curious condition of Sōta is for stretches of the film, it’s only supernatural component, as much of Suzume is concerned with her experiences across Japan, general episodes of her emerging autonomy and self-sufficiency occasionally interrupted by this larger mission. In these we get snippets of earnest drama, evocative of some of those humbler but no less potent Studio Ghibli efforts (Whisper of the Heart is even referenced by name in this movie). I particularly liked the digression where they stayed with a Kobe bartender, a charming mother figure; and a chunk of the third act focuses on a road trip to the far north with Sōta’s college friend and Suzume’s guardian aunt, both of whom are enjoyable characters to spend time with, the aunt in particular having a richer personality to build a story around than her niece –who is often little more than an archetypal anime girl protagonist.
Her relationship to her late mother though is one of her more curious dimensions –she died in the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, and Suzume still dreams of being met by her in the ruins. The pain of that loss runs deep, and credit to Shinkai for expressing it in mostly subtle terms, the draw of the mysterious Ever-After behind those doorways notwithstanding. Occasionally it comes through more bluntly, most notably in an embittered confrontation between Suzume and her aunt, in which frankly the latter earns more sympathy. But even there it is a dash of something real, a show of humanity from both. The movie actually relates well the potency of natural disasters, through Suzume and others the personal anxiety tied into them; and there’s something of a sharp metaphor there for how the worm represents a nebulous pressure, in both a psychological individual and a communal sense. Yet it is still subsumed by the supernatural intensity that attempts but never quite succeeds at being a reflection of this charged emotionality.
However, I respect that even if that grandiosity isn’t earned, Shinkai once more turns to actual concepts of Japanese folklore for his giant worm and the keystones that keep it at bay. Sōta cites the Namazu as precursor to what they are dealing with now, and it lends a sense of cultural continuity entirely unique and intriguing. I don’t know how common knowledge such myth and stories are in modern Japanese society, but in any case Shinkai appears to be committed to preserving these staples of heritage in new, accessible ways.
Though I do maintain it is perhaps too accessible. Even with it’s more bizarre choices, principally that talking chair as love interest, it is a largely routine movie, interchangeable with several other animes and Shinkai animes in particular. His biggest strength, his animation itself, characterized by a vibrant, evocative use of shadow, seems itself even a touch muted and not quite so deep compared to his other movies –though it still looks very good. Suzume is a real blockbuster anime; it’s bigness of scale and broadness of character is geared towards maximizing that appeal. In that respect alone maybe there is some truth to those Miyazaki comparisons. But it would be nice if such strong anime hits could be so intrepid again.
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