The Iwato family were victims of this tragedy. The then four-years old Suzume was too scared to face the fact that her only family had died in the disaster, and desperately asked every person she came by about her mother’s whereabouts. It was during this search that she found the door to the Ever-After, a timeless realm where Worms and Gods reside and battle. This would later become the thing that ties her fate with Souta, the love of her life. Canonically, earthquakes in Japan are caused by Worms, and the Closers’ jobs are to close the doors to the Ever-After to stop the Worms from entering our world. And then there comes this girl haunted by an earthquake that took her mother’s life, who became the very persons that stops earthquakes from happening, a Closer.
What was the dream sequence in the introduction about? Why can Suzume see the Worm and the Ever-After while others can’t? Why does it rain after the Worms are defeated? Why are the keystones so cold they’re freezing? The movie gives satisfying answers to every last lingering question.
I am rambling on because the interlocking themes of family, intimacy, companionship, unavoidable tragedy, and childhood trauma is presented in a way that no other medium can replicate. Shinkai has really stepped up his writing in Suzume, and the result is poetic. There’s no other way to put it, Suzume is poetic.
The sound direction is, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, nothing short of amazing. Its off-beat and comedic moments are paired well with the James Bond-esque jazzy Cat Chase. The moments involving the Worms the score is grand and suffocating with a subtle nod to traditional Japanese music, such as Abandoned School and Sky Over Tokyo. And of course, the glorious EDs, RADWIMPS underrated Kanata Haruka and the viral Suzume need no introduction unless you’ve been living under a rock.
The art direction was not up to par with the usual Shinkai standard. While Suzume has that je ne sais quoi animation featured in every Shinkai work, the 3D integration in this movie was a double edged sword. On one hand, it creates jaw-dropping scenes like the 360 panning shot of the abandoned onsen resort. On the other hand, it could look like the over smoothened worm all over Tokyo. Granted, it’s a nippick among nippicks, but the standard for Shinkai is high for a reason, and Suzume’s animation was definitely a bummer.
Whatever Shinkai movie it might be, you can bet that the main couple end up meeting again on a hill of some sorts. You could dismiss it as lazy rehash, but I see it as, again, poetic.
