Suzume (73rd Berlinale International Film Festival)
The indie director who found out his niche was the mainstream.
In the same way my grandmother will always think of me as a child, no matter how old I am, for me Shinkai Makoto will always remain that indie director who made Voices of a Distant Star and The Place Promised in Our Early Days. I miss the melancholy and sadness of his early works, but I have a lot of respect for the way he adapted to the global success Kimi no na wa brought him.
So what is his newest film Suzume about? There are giant worms that cause earthquakes and have to be stopped at all cost. Wait, isn’t that the plot of a Murakami story? Anyway, many asked the question: Is Shinkai the new Miyazaki. And yes, Suzume is the second time he ripped-off paid homage to the cat in Nausicaä, (the first time if we keep pretending that Children who Chase Voices from Deep Below does not exist). But in this case it’s fine because the cat is also Kyubey.
Originality was never Shinkai’s strength and it doesn’t need to be. Suzume is the best of his last three films, as the director himself said during the Q&A at the films international premier in Berlin. It is a well crafted-film that looks good most of the time and has a nice soundtrack – apart from the obligatory Radwimps track there is a retro playlist used during a road trip scene, which is probably my favorite part of the movie. The humor is well executed as well. Unlike Hosoda, whose outstandingly bad writing is impossible to ignore, Shinkai knows his craft. The indie director found out his niche was the mainstream. If anyone has to produce blockbuster Anime features on a regular basis, Shinkai is the right person to do the job.
I wrote this review right after the screening, because tomorrow I will likely have forgotten most of what has happened in the film. And that’s fine. I had a fun time.
PS I really feel like rereading Hardboiled-Wonderland and the End of the World now.