You don’t have to know someone a lifetime for them to become the most important person in your life. It can happen in days or weeks. One person can affect so many others, many times even those they don’t know. In the new Makoto Shinkai movie Suzume, known in Japan as Suzume no Tojimari, we experience this firsthand as characters connect. We watch as a young woman forms new relationships, strengthens existing ones, and both consciously and unconsciously makes a difference in everyone’s lives, whether they realize it or not.
Suzume begins with the title character experiencing an otherworldly dream. She’s a child, exploring an inexplicable area where boats could be on top of buildings and there’s an unnatural stillness with an impossibly pretty sky. She’s searching for her mother, who seems to find her. Suzume wakes up at this moment, passes her aunt Tamaki, and heads to school. That’s when a chance meeting changes everything.
Suzume passes Sota Munakata on the way, and he asks her about ruins and doors. She’s captivated by him and feels like he’s familiar. Though she continues her commute, she then doubles back to the resort she directed him to. She doesn’t find him there, but she does find a door standing in the middle of nowhere. When she opens it, she sees the place in her dreams on the otherside. However, she can’t enter. When she tries, she happens upon a cat-like statue that, after being picked up, transforms into an actual cat. It runs off, she returns to school, and that’s when things happen. An earthquake happens, Suzume sees a billowing, smoke-like “worm” emerging from the ruins, and she runs back.
That door was the one Sota was looking for, and said cat was a keystone keeping an otherworldly, supernatural entity that could level cities and cause untold destruction and death. He’s a closer who shuts said doors. With Suzume’s help, they manage to close the door in Kyushu, though he’s hurt in the process. Upon treating him, the western keystone curses him to become the childhood chair in her room that he was sitting on. The two then head off to get the cat/keystone, eventually dubbed Daijin, break Sota’s curse, and close doors to prevent the worm’s destruction along the way.
This is when Suzume starts to excel as, while the events of the movie take place during a brief period of time, it can feel like an eternity in the best way possible. We watch as Suzume and Sota’s relationship grows and the two begin to rely upon and trust each other as they close doors and chase Daijin around Japan. As unconventional as the relationship might be, we see them learn to work well together and care about one another. They go out of their way for each other, as much as they can, and each one’s strengths compensate for the others’ weaknesses.
Likewise, Suzume is a movie that isn’t afraid to showcase slower, peaceful moments between flurries of activity, much like Studio Ghibli films. While there will be intense segments when it may seem characters we’ve come to care for’s lives are on the line, we’ll also see them perform chores or sing along to silly songs on a road trip in a busted car. Suzume might only meet some of these people for a a few hours or an evening, but that doesn’t mean those connections and friendships are any less important than ones developed over years.
It also manages to very tactfully address the complications that can come from families. Suzume’s home life is an unconventional one. She was raised by a single mother and, when she lost her, Tamaki stepped up. We see just how much they care about one another. However, at the same time, Suzume manages to emphasize just how difficult this had to be for both of these characters.
It’s also amazing how someone could even say these sorts of connections apply to Suzume’s characters and the people they don’t even know. Suzume and Sota take on a selfless quest. Sota is doing this on his own prior to that, aiding people across Japan and even potentially putting aside his own goals and dreams to ensure millions of people will be safe, getting no credit or recognition in return. Suzume also takes on this task initially to set right something she set in motion and aid someone she’s drawn to, but then also engages in that same sort of selfless behavior, sacrificing things important to her to ensure the safety of others. It’s a feel-good endeavor, especially when you appreciate what they’re giving up. Not to mention there’s a sense of satisfaction that comes from seeing that, while we in our own day-to-day lives may be unable to halt overwhelming tragedies, we can watch these two make a difference.
Suzume is now in theaters in North America, some parts of Europe, and Oceania. It will come to theaters in Columbia and Portugal on April 20, 2023, in Bulgaria, Finland, Poland, and Romania on April 21, 2023, in Italy, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE on April 27, 2023, and in Iceland on April 30, 2023.
