EARTHLY MATTERS
SUZUME Makoto Shinkai’s latest animation will make you quake…
The 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated much of eastern Japan left an enormous impact for all those who experienced it. Japanese filmmaker Makoto Shinkai was one of the lucky ones. He was in Tokyo that day, working. ‘We felt the earthquake, and all the traffic stopped – the trains and buses,’ he explains when Teasers meets him at the Berlin Film Festival. But the ripple effect of this terrible natural disaster cut much further. ‘It changed my mindset,’ he adds. ‘The themes and the motives that I used in my movies changed – natural disasters became a very important motif.’
‘In times when there are many crises, the animation industry must change’ MAKOTO SHINKAI
The films that have since seen Shinkai become one of the most respected animation directors in the world – Your Name (2016) and Weathering with You (2019) – both explored ecological concerns. His latest vibrant animation, Suzume, centres on a Japan rocked by tremors. Suzume, a 17-year-old girl (voiced by Nanoka Hara) who lost her mother in the 2011 earthquake, goes on a bizarre adventure when she meets a mysterious stranger battling environmental disaster. Although, this doesn’t even scratch the surface of a trippy tale that brings us everything from mischievous cats to a walking three-legged stool.
Shinkai, 50, always knew he needed to use fantasy to temper such a
heavyweight idea. ‘At the core is a sad story, of course, a story of loss,’ he says. ‘But with that alone, you can’t appeal to a broad audience. If you say, “OK, look, this is a story about the great earthquake that happened in the northeastern region,” no one would come to watch that movie! It would be like a lecture. So I thought that we would have to wrap that into an entertainment to attract many people.’
Attract people it did, with Suzume a massive hit in Japan, where it’s earned more than $100 million since opening last November. The film feels all the more resonant given the recent earthquake that rocked Turkey and Syria, while last year, a 5.6-magnitude tremor struck the island of Kyushu, where the film begins. ‘We’re having more and more natural disasters,’ sighs Shinkai. ‘It’s not so peaceful any more. In times when there are many crises, I think that the animation industry itself must also change. Suzume is one of those examples.’
Certainly, creating an animated film with a potent message like this – one that can touch younger generations – feels vital. Animation always helped Shinkai, when he was growing up, he says, and now he wants to do the same. ‘I wanted to return something, give something back and that’s why I got into the animation industry.’ He still worries, though. ‘As I’m getting older now, the gap between me and the younger generation is getting bigger and bigger.’ With age, as they say, comes great wisdom…