Makoto Shinkai's "SUZUME"
Movie review by Dennis D. McDonald
I’m currently on the Japanese history kick. I recently reviewed a book about Japanese myths and I’m now working through an online Harvard course about historic Japanese documents. I’ve been eager to see this particular director’s latest movie given that I have been so impressed with his other works. When I discovered Suzume was showing at a local multiplex here in Alexandria Virginia I immediately bought tickets rather than wait for it to show up on a streaming service.
I’m glad I did. Seeing Suzume on a big screen with good sound is an impressive experience. There’s a lot of detail both in close-ups and in horizon spanning wide vistas where massive moving objects in the sky generate an overwhelming sense of scale. Even in such scenes we can see a tiny plot-critical character in the distance, an effect that might be lost on even a decent sized flatscreen TV.
The underlying plot line is fairly simple: ancient gods who control Japan’s earthquakes awake and escape. They need to be put back under lock and key or else disasters will occur, disasters of the type the Japanese people are altogether too familiar with. A high school girl, Suzume, becomes enmeshed in efforts to control the portals the gods are using to influence our world. In the process we learn about Suzume, her own back story, and a host of well defined secondary characters whose emotional states frequently boil over and intertwine.
Oh yes, there’s also a talking cat, a talking chair, and giant hideous worm like vortex of supernatural force that periodically escapes into our world and threatens to plunge to earth to cause massive earthquakes (another reason to see this with a good sound system).
Some of the visuals in Suzume are simply awesome but we’ve learned to expect that from Makoto Shinkai. What I found most engaging about this film—beside its awesome visuals—or two things in particular:
The characters themselves. We identify with stubborn plucky Suzume but even the secondary characters are remarkably well portrayed. They have personalities.
The country. If you know anything about Japanese history and its earthquakes, both past and recent, you can’t help but experience dread when everyone’s cellphone lights up with earthquake warnings (a frequent occurrence in this film). The earthquake causes portrayed here may be fanciful, but the potential for destruction is so anxiety- inducing that, as rational and science-focused as I am, I can’t really blame people for grasping onto supernatural explanations for such horrors.
As popular as this film is elsewhere (in Japan and China for example), I don’t expect Suzume to do a great business in theaters here in the US. My theory about that is that anime and animation fans may have become accustomed to streaming services along with the plethora of anime series now available via services such as Hulu and Crunchyroll.
That’s a pity. This film is execeptional and deserves to be seen on a big theater screen.
Review copyright (c) 2023 by Dennis D. McDonald
