It was, certainly, a movie.
It is still pretty, but it is pretty in roughly the same way as Your Name or Weathering With You. I also particularly did not like the visualization of the worms, they look ugly in a tacky way. The music was okay, but it has a feel of “now, the action scene is happening, let’s turn an epic song“.
The main thing that bothers me in this movie is that any dynamics between characters, and, particularly, Suzume herself, are not actually changing. Formally, this movie deals with the theme of grief and tells the story of Suzume accepting the death of her
...
mother, and this could be a great story. However, prior to Suzume’s adventure, I did not see that this event still lingers over her life in a significant enough way.
And I thought at first the groundwork was laid down there! Suzume went going after a guy, Souta, whom she sees for the first time in her life and immediately starts chasing him because he is pretty, which could be an indicator of a feeling her normal life is missing something due to her trauma. I do not say it was a necessary thing to portray, there is nothing wrong with a teenager going with the flow – after all, what is the youth without acting irrationally sometimes? But there were no other real signs of how life of Suzume was missing a purpose.
The problem is, her relationship with Souta is also pretty static – Suzume gets a crush on him and she continues liking him for the whole road. There was neither chemistry that would make one’s sympathize with Suzume’s love even if it is not based on logic, nor any critical outlook or deepening of the relationship. The authors created a cute long-haired boy just to turn him into a chair at the beginning of the movie and stay like this for the most part. What a shame. The double shame is that he has a depth of the personality of the chair: he is nice and he wants to save people. There is not much else to say about him, which would be fine if, again, Suzume’s sympathy would be treated cautiously. But…
SPOILERS ALERT
Suzume comes to be involved in a dangerous but important mission with two primary motivations: 1) to save people from death and 2) to get to know the guy. At one point in the movie, the first point is resolved, with the sacrifice of Souta. Yet the movie does not end there, because Suzume wants to save the guy. She screams “I cannot imagine a world without Souta“ and at one point was ready to exchange her life for his. And she could have various interesting motivations for it which serve to the theme of her unprocessed trauma: she could feel guilt that it is her fault he was lost, she did not want to lose another person like she lost her mother, she could not accept getting back to normal mundane life, she treated her crush like the true love when it was not yet... Not a pinch of the doubt though was thrown at the rightness of her mission. It is not a bad thing to be altruistic, after all, the guy was a person who made the lives of others better, and if he could be saved, why not. But I just do not see how it works in the context of Suzume’s personal development.
I also have questions about the progression of Suzume's relationship of with her aunt. I did not see the aunt being overly protective: it is reasonable for a parent figure to be afraid if their child decides to suddenly leave for several days and not explain anything, the only unnecessary thing was pages of text. But okay, the character development of the aunt makes sense: she accepts Suzume is an adult now and can make decisions for herself and therefore the aunt gets over resentment that Suzume restricts her search for a partner (I do not think that her lashing out on Suzume needed to be caused by the cat god but okay). However, feelings from Suzume’s side are also static: she does not explain anything to her aunt at the beginning of the movie, she does not do this at the end of the movie, or feel any guilt that she caused her aunt to worry (even if it is a right thing to follow her mission). She also blames her aunt for being too restrictive… but again, I did not see cases where the aunt’s worries were unfounded.
The relationship with the mother was also not portrayed well, in my opinion. Formally, there are a lot of events happening, Suzume visits different places, bonds with strangers who lost their loved ones in earthquake catastrophes continues living works various jobs, and risks her life to save other people. But this did not really change Suzume and if she reconsidered anything, and the main problem was that it was not shown how trauma played in her life originally except for bad dreams. Yes, in the end, she comforts her child's version: this could be emotional if one empathized with Suzume’s struggles before.
It would be interesting if the movie played with the idea that maybe the mother was also a Closer and that is why Suzume can see behind the doors. I almost thought that Suzume pretending she is a cousin of Souta was leading to her actually being his cousin, it is completely unnecessary to happen but would be funny. Maybe the mother is somehow related to the cat but I did not feel that.
SPOILERS END
I do not regret seeing the movie, I would even say that I was enjoying the ride: pretty landscapes, some cute and funny moments, a friend of Souta is quite charismatic. Yet I cannot say that was a good movie.
Apr 16, 2023
Suzume no Tojimari
(Anime)
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It was, certainly, a movie.
It is still pretty, but it is pretty in roughly the same way as Your Name or Weathering With You. I also particularly did not like the visualization of the worms, they look ugly in a tacky way. The music was okay, but it has a feel of “now, the action scene is happening, let’s turn an epic song“. The main thing that bothers me in this movie is that any dynamics between characters, and, particularly, Suzume herself, are not actually changing. Formally, this movie deals with the theme of grief and tells the story of Suzume accepting the death of her ... |
