★ 6 / 10
Suzume" is cycling to school one morning when
CinemaSerf
"Suzume" is cycling to school one morning when she encounters a strange young man who asks her for directions to the nearest ruin! She sends him off in the…
"Suzume" is cycling to school one morning when she encounters a strange young man who asks her for directions to the nearest ruin! She sends him off in the direction of a dilapidated complex and continues her journey. Gradually, though, she begins to wonder who he was and what he was up to. Quickly, she races to find him and encounters a door - sitting in the middle of a wet patio. She opens it to see another world on the other side. If she crosses the threshold, though, it becomes her own world with the other world, well, still on the other side... On the ground she notices a small carving. It looks like a cat, hang on - it is a cat - and suddenly all hell breaks loose as a giant worm tries to enter her world through the door. Luckily, her wanderer, "Souta", had also found the door and together they close it and lock it with a magical key. He explains that there are loads of these portals around the Earth and it is his job as a "closer" to keep them shut else the planet will be destroyed. Now, back to the cat. It seems that it has a special purpose here, and when it appears to curse "Souta" - turning him into a yellow, three-legged child's chair (that previously belonged to "Suzume") we find their investigations take on a bit of a comical effect as they rush from door to door chasing the open wormholes and the cat - all while slowly discovering that they might be falling in love. It's quite fun for the first half hour with plenty of action, a bit of humour with the hobbling wooden seat and as we establish the story and the characters. Thereafter, though, I found this to be a little too repetitive with the story recycling itself a bit too often. There are a few extra characters drafted in - her aunt, with whom she lives, and a lady who runs a bar who takes her in for the night - but they don't really add very much to what is essentially a short story stretched out for two hours that could easily have been shorter and more condense. The production is colourful and the standard of animation throughout is bright and vivid, and I did quite enjoy it - but as a story it really lacks substance as it progresses to it's eventual close. To be fair, that denouement is not as predictable as you might have thought and it tests the mettle and the affections of all concerned as many of the assumptions that we (had all) made as the story developed become questionable. By that stage, though, I had sort of lost interest in "Suzume" as a lead character.
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★ 9 / 10
With a compelling story, jaw-dropping animation and impressive
Chris Sawin
With a compelling story, jaw-dropping animation and impressive action sequences, _Suzume_ is a contender for Makoto Shinkai’s most thrilling and enjoyable film…
With a compelling story, jaw-dropping animation and impressive action sequences, _Suzume_ is a contender for Makoto Shinkai’s most thrilling and enjoyable film to date.
It’s an uninterrupted adventure with relentless twists and turns and no brakes. You’ll easily fall in love with the film’s rich and detailed animation, not to mention the jazzy and stylish score provided by rock band Radwimps and composer Kazuma Jinnouchi that would make even Yoko Kanno envious.
Suffice to say, _Suzume_ is a dazzling rabbit hole of animation and charm.
**Full review:** https://boundingintocomics.com/2023/04/18/suzume-review-a-dazzling-rabbit-hole-of-animation-and-charm/
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★ 8 / 10
Brilliant Animation, Brilliant Direction, Brilliant Soundtrack, Incomplete Story
talking_about_movies
This is one of those movies, which just makes it really tough on me to write about it. Because if I talk about the problems I had with the movie, it seems a…
This is one of those movies, which just makes it really tough on me to write about it. Because if I talk about the problems I had with the movie, it seems a bit unfair because it is in fact a good movie. But if I don't, that seems unfair too because I did have some problems with this movie. Here's a little background on my impression of the director (and the writer and the editor) - Makoto Shinkai. "Your Name" is one of the best movies I've ever seen (not just in anime). And I absolutely adore "5 Centimetres Per Second" and "Garden of Words". I sort of have a love-hate relationship with "Weathering With You". I can write a long paragraph about it, but long story short, I absolutely love the direction, animation and soundtrack of that movie, but I really don't like the script and the plot.
Ok now to Suzume. I do think this is a good movie. And I think people are going to have a great time with it, because of Shinkai's masterful direction and the RADWIMPS' breath-taking soundtrack. But I'm disappointed with the plot. Well, not exactly disappointed, but let me explain a bit more. I had a lot of fun with the first half of this movie. In fact, I loved the first 80% of this movie. And that's also because the movie continuously kept adding more and more unanswered questions, which made the plot more and more mysterious and it was great, until I started realising that the movie doesn't have enough time left to answer all those questions. And it didn't. When the end credits rolled, I was disappointed because so many answers felt missing. So much supernatural stuff happened in between that just wasn't explained. And now that I think about it, even Your Name didn't exactly explain its supernatural stuff. But it worked because of its characters. Because even though those plotlines didn't have a logical reason, they surely had an emotional one. This movie didn't seem to have both. Here, I can see that shinkai is trying to fit these themes like moving on and death but they didn't seem to fit into the movie.
You know, I can't help but feel that after the success of Your Name, Shinkai is trying to repeat some of the same formulas in his stories. Some similarities with Your Name in both Weathering With You and Suzume are very evident. Like a natural disaster looming over the characters, a romance that turns very dramatic in the second half. The romance in this movie actually felt a lot more natural than it did in Weathering with You. But the problem is that just like Your Name, Shinkai makes these romances take a very dramatic turn. And romance, being a delicate emotion, can't be forced so dramatically until a certain level of familiarity has been reached in the first half.
He did this flawlessly in Your Name and that's because that movie is built around its romance. Whereas in this movie, it feels that he's trying to add a dramatic romance to a plot that could've done without it. Look that's why it's tough on me, you might think I hated this movie. Not even close. I had a good time with this movie, because it is in fact a good movie. It's just that it could have been a lot more than it is, which is why I have to say the things I said above. But like I said this movie is directed MAJESTICALLY. I mean Shinkai's direction is just insane. He makes you feel emotions that aren't even there to feel xD.
And the animation is so, so gorgeous. As good as it was in his previous movies (maybe even better). And RADWIMPS is now 3 in 3 with this soundtrack. This soundtrack is just as good as Your Name and Weathering With You, and that's saying something. I mean there is a sequence, where a certain supernatural entity covers the city of Tokyo and it's like one of the most mesmerizing scenes I've ever seen. The way Shinkai shows that scene, with the breath-taking shots, brilliant animation and jaw-dropping soundtrack, I mean it brought tears to my eyes. Give this man an oscar xD.
This is also Shinkai's funniest movie. There are some very funny sequences here. 1 specific hilarious plot point that continues throughout the movie was just genius. The movie starts off very quickly and seeing these characters trying to catch on with what all is happening just made it even more entertaining and funny. There are also some very touching moments, mostly because of how brilliantly they were directed. Shinkai's direction and RADWIMPS' soundtrack is a combination that's capable of completely taking over it's viewers. But that 1 part of my brain which was thinking about the plot kept pulling me back.
Overall though I had a good time with this movie but I'd say Shinkai is capable of much more than this in terms of the plot. I certainly like it more than Weathering With You though.
I love movies like 5 Centimetres Per Second and Garden of Words. They were great movies in their own right, and they were nothing like Your Name. Those movies explored deep emotions like separation, alienation and growing up and did it brilliantly. So any movie can be great in its own right. I have a lot of faith in Shinkai as a filmmaker and I'd like to see a different movie from him.
(Btw you're going to get goosebumps when the title pops up at the beginning of the movie, trust me)
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english shubtitle in sync please