Suzume (2022)

It's rare when it happens that I really want to write a blog entry on a movie but I don't have much idea of what I could write about it. I think that in the history of this blog I had like two-three situations when I felt the need to not let a title move by without pointing something out about it, but struggling to do it, and being aware from start that besides saying the movie's good I don't have much else left. Well, maybe there were more similar cases when I wasn't aware it happens :) What's certain for "Suzume" is that we're in such a situation. So...

What we have here is an anime where the background story is some sort of Japanese fantasy, in which a giant worm symbolizing the earthquakes and other natural disasters, escapes from time to time through some doors meant to be closed by somebody called, well, a "closer". The somebody meets during such a journey with Suzume, a teenager on her way to school, who eventually takes over the closer role. And from here on we step into a semi-fantasy road trip, which in my opinion is, as I said already, just a background story. Or a context to build metaphors, and maybe surprisingly, a very.. abstract one.

Let's move quickly over the technical part where, for an anime, the visual experience definitely deserves a viewing. I'm actually sorry I missed this on big screen. Now, we're getting to the part where I don't really know what else to say. As in other more "classic" anime movies, where obviously Miyazaki comes to mind, there are parts far enough from reality to be hard to get their meaning and even slowing down the movie. Still, these are also part of the metaphores set, and I believe each of these can be understood differently depending on who's watching it, which is probably the most interesting thing in the entire movie build-up - somebody could relate something with his or hers own life in a very different way than somebody else will probably do it. It might sound cryptic what I'm saying, but it's more practical to experiment on your own and see if it checks. Maybe I'm wrong :)

Rating: 4 out of 5