Suzume (2022) on Netflix
NR20222h 2mActionAdventureAnimation
Suzume Iwato, seventeen, follows Souta Munakata, who seals doors in abandoned places so disasters stay locked away. At an abandoned resort a cat statue wakes and turns Souta into a chair.
- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb7.6/1065,942 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes96%
Trailer
Plot summary
Suzume Iwato is a seventeen-year-old high school student who lives with her aunt Tamaki in Kyushu. One morning she meets Souta Munakata, a young man hunting for abandoned places with doors, and points him to a disused onsen resort nearby. There Suzume finds a door standing alone, opens it, and looks out on a field of stars she cannot step into. She stumbles over a cat statue; it becomes a live cat and runs off. During lunch she notices a column of smoke over the resort that nobody else can see, and helps Souta lock the door it pours from. The escaping smoke leaves earthquake-like damage in the town. Souta tells her he is a Closer, sealing such doors so a supernatural worm cannot break loose and shake the earth. The cat then turns Souta into a chair.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Suzume (2022)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Shinkai first wanted Suzume's travelling companion to be another girl in a "sisterhood type of romantic story", but his producer argued that audiences still wanted his usual romance. The partner therefore became a chair, chosen to keep the film from becoming too romantic and to lighten its mood.
- Makoto Shinkai cast Nanoka Hara as the voice of Suzume Iwato from an audition of more than 1,700 people; Hara was already a fan of his films and said she could not imagine sharing the sensation she felt watching one in a theatre.
- Shinkai made the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami a direct subject rather than a metaphor, as the disasters in Your Name and Weathering with You had been, because he feared memories of it were growing hazy and wanted to share them with teenagers who never knew it.
- Suzume premiered in competition at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival on February 23, 2023, the first time an anime film had competed in the festival since Spirited Away in 2002.
- Shinkai said the COVID-19 pandemic had little tangible effect on the production but was indelibly etched into the script, which he said would be post-apocalyptic; Souta turning into a chair came from Shinkai feeling trapped during the pandemic curbs.
- Shinkai conceived the film while travelling Japan to give talks, noticing its many empty and abandoned places as the birth rate declines and the population ages, and the custom of holding a jichinsai ceremony before building a home but doing nothing when closing one; he wanted to mourn deserted places.
Stills
Similar movies
