Suzume

 Suzume (すずめの戸締まり) is a feature length coming of age fantasy movie by Shinkai Makoto.  The original theatrical release was in November of 2022.

    Iwato Suzume is a junior in high school in a small sleepy village in Kyushu.  On her way to school one day she encounters a hansom stranger who asks her if there are any ruins with a door nearby.  The only thing she can think of is an abandoned resort in the hills outside of town.  She heads off to school, but something about the man pulls at her and she turns around, heading to the resort.  Once there she doesn't see any sign of the man but does see a strange free standing door.  Curious, she opens it, to find a vast landscape blanketed in the night sky beyond.  Entranced by the strange scenery she crosses the threshold only to pass through still in the ruins of the resort.  She crosses through again, still able to see the strange world through the door, but still remains in the hills outside of her town.  She stumbles on a strange statue embedded in the floor.  After pulling the object out it suddenly changes into a mangy cat and runs off.  Disturbed by the occurrences, she speeds back to school and sanity.

    Late to school, her friends question her disappearance but are interrupted with an earthquake warning on their cellphones.  Suzume notices black smoke coming from the hills and tries to point it out to her friends, but they are unable to see it.  As her concern grows, the smoke increases and begins to take the form of a snake.  Something about this is not natural and makes Suzume uneasy, particularly as she is the only one that appears to see it.  Suspecting it is related to what she found at the abandoned resort she rushes out of school.  Her suspicion proves correct and the growing black form in the sky is pouring out of the door she left open.  In the swirling darkness she sees the stranger, struggling to close the door.  With her help they are able to close it and the man uses a glowing key to 'lock' the door.  But they aren't quick enough, the black form has crashed to the earth, causing an earthquake to cause damage to the town.

    Suzume brings the man back to her house to threat a wound he received on his arm in the process of closing the door.  The town is shaken but it appears there was no real damage or injury.   As she is treating his wounds the man tells her his name, Munakata Souta, and that he is a 'closer'.  Closers are responsible for finding and sealing such doors across the country to prevent the giant worms from causing earthquakes.  As they chat, the strange cat appears, surprising them by speaking and instantly transferring Souta's consciousness into a small three legged chair from Suzume's youth.  The cat leaps away, with Souta (the chair) followed by Suzume, scrambling to catch it.  The chase brings them onboard of ferry that is departing from the town.  Before they can capture it, the cat leaps off of the boat, to the safety of a passing vessel.  Suzume and Souta in for a journey they can't stop, spending the time to formulate a plan.  The ferry will arrive in Ehime, hours away.

    Souta explains that along with the doors and the closers who track them, there are two keystones that are used to strengthen the seal between the real world and the world beyond the doors.  Souta suspects that the strange cat is one of the keystones, that has become unstuck from its defensive position.  He fears that the other keystone will not be strong enough to hold back the other side and the destruction it brings with it.  He has to capture the strange cat and find a way to restore it.  He hopes that doing so will also lift the curse it placed on him, turning him into Suzume's chair.  He doesn't want Suzume to join him, instructing her to take the return ferry back home, but she refuses, recognizing how impassible the task would be for an animate chair.  Before he can argue about it, she notices their cat has become popular in postings on Line.  Distracted by the chase, he puts his concerns behind him and they head off to follow the cat through the sudden stream of photos with it, the internet having named the cat Daijin.   

    It is a race against time as they chase the keystone across the country, closing doors it opens along the way and relying on the kindness of strangers to keep the chase going.  All the while, Suzume's guardian and aunt, is going crazy with grief at the girl she has been raising suddenly changing and running away from home.  Suzume understands any real excuses she could give her aunt wouldn't make any sense, but she doesn't have time to think about that, fearing her actions will bring great ruin and death to the country.  Something about the door and the world beyond reminds her of the time when her mother died, when she was four years old, a time that exists far into her memory and dreams.  These feelings drive her forward, coupled with her sense of quilt and responsibility, pushing forward until the task at hand is completed and she can return to her normal life.

    I regret not seeing this amazingly beautiful movie in the theaters when I had the chance...twice now!  I know better than to skip Shinaki films on the big screen as they are all amazingly crafted.  This is the most blatantly super natural of all of his films.  It is also the closest of his films to resemble a Studio Ghibli movie.  I have long disliked the idea that Shinkai has been frequently labeled the new Miyazaki.  Shinkai's films focus on personal relationships and feelings of loneliness and longing.  Miyazaki crafts, mostly, fantastical stories as veiled warnings for real world problems.  I consider Hosoda Mamoru to be more in line with the Miyazaki style.  Yet Suzume is very very Ghibli in style and story.  A fantastical allegory typing the great tragedies of Japan to a supernatural phenomena, which in its self is tied to personal responsibilities of a few individuals.  This is his letter of compassion to the victims and survivors of the Touhoku earthquake in March of 2011.

    As with every other film by him, this is strikingly animated, with realistic backgrounds and directing.  He and his team, truly make the best looking films of the 21st century, in my opinion.  Always focusing on unnaturally vivid and beautiful landscapes and skies.  All of his movies seem like love letters to the wild and quiet spaces of Japan.  Beginning with Your Name, the narrative of Shinkai's films have moved from lose and melancholy to hope and growth.  While I do savor depressing, tear jerk-er, drama's its better to see a sense of hope in his stories.  I suspect the changes in his personal life over the years have influenced the stories he tells.  Regardless of his themes being less suicidal in tone, they always share a common theme of the hero's path.  Shinkai's characters in many of his films find themselves unwittingly thrust into journeys that only they can take, with uncertain outcomes, only driven by their own conviction.  It was very stark and apparent with Suzume that this was truly a heroes journey style story when the title character, against all odds and sense of self preservation, is doing everything they can to prevent turmoil and destruction.  Suzume and Weathering With You are a shift in narration for him...not discounting Children Who Chase Lost Voices.  He may actually begin to resemble the mantle thrust on him years ago as the new Miyazaki.  Time will tell, but I will always welcome more beauty from him.

    Suzume is readily available in physical and digital formats as well as currently streaming on Crunchyroll.