Suzume

I really enjoyed Your Name so I have been anticipating the release of Makoto Shinkai's latest film, Suzume, for quite some time.  I was able to see it yesterday and I really loved it (even more than I was expecting).  Suzume (Nanoka Hara) is a 17-year-old girl who lost her mother at a very young age and continually dreams about searching for her after their neighborhood was destroyed by an earthquake and the subsequent tsunami.  She believes she can see her mother in a beautiful field but she cannot reach her.  One day she encounters a handsome and mysterious young man named Souta (Hokuto Matsumuro) who is looking for ruins.  She directs him to an abandoned resort and then impulsively decides to follow him.  She finds a free standing door and, when she opens it, she sees the same beautiful field where she thinks her mother is and tries to enter it.  But, instead of finding her mother, she finds a relic which unleashes something devastating into the world.  The relic is transformed into a cat named Daijin (Ann Yamane) who escapes and, without the relic guarding the door, a supernatural worm which causes earthquakes is allowed to escape.  Souta and Suzume are able to close the door and prevent the earthquake but Daijin curses Souta and turns him into a chair.  Suzume and Souta now must chase Daijin to various abandoned places all over Japan to close the doors he opens and to convince him to return Souta to his body.  It is only when Suzume learns to reject death that Daijin becomes the relic once again and Souta becomes whole again.  This has so many important messages about the connection between the spiritual and the natural world but I really liked the lesson that Suzume learns about overcoming her trauma and embracing life and new relationships (there are so many beautiful scenes where she and Souta are helped by kind strangers) and I found it to be incredibly moving.  There are some fantastical elements that might be problematic for some people but I think they work very well because they are grounded in the reality of the natural disasters that plague Japan.  The animation is absolutely beautiful, especially the use of light and color in natural settings, and I also really loved the emotionally charged score.  Definitely go see this, especially if you are a fan of Shinkai’s previous films or of Japanese anime in general.