Makoto Shinkai’s films are real cinema magic and are always characterized by a particularly melancholic note. Animes such as ‘Your Name.’, ‘Weathering With You – The Girl Who Touched the Sun’ or ‘5 Centimeters per second’ bring the drawn worlds to life through beautiful landscape and city photos: cities, fields, meadows and strange, mysterious Places – everything comes to life in the play of light and weather and impresses with an incredible wealth of detail.
His latest film “Suzume” is also a real highlight of the art of animation and is for many anime fans (including the author of these lines) one of the cinema highlights of the current film year. The film about the adventurous journey of schoolgirl Suzume was only released in cinemas on April 13, 2023.
If you were unable to watch the film on the big screen, you can watch it again from the comfort of your home in a few days. You can experience the film with a subscription from October 17, 2023 – at no extra cost! Provided you are a Crunchyroll customer. Here you arrive at the anime streamer’s offer.
And the animated blockbuster is worth seeing because it is not only a wonderfully sensitive coming-of-age story, but also the moodiest film by Makoto Shinkai, who is otherwise known for his poetic, quiet works. In the story about portals to strange worlds, a petrified cat of God and an animated wooden children’s chair with three legs also play an important role. Sounds crazy? It is.
“Suzume” at the Berlinale 2023
“Suzume” celebrated its premiere in this country during a competition at the Berlinale this year. A rare award, the last time an anime film was represented at the film festival was ‘Spirited Away’ in 2002, when the film even won the Golden Bear. “Suzume” did not succeed in this, but the creative adventure still received a lot of positive criticism.
We from the editorial staff of FILMSTARTS are also real fans of “Suzume” and gave the film a big 4 out of 5 stars. Editor Björn Becher draws the following conclusion in his criticism:
If you want to get your own idea of the anime, you can watch the trailer we recorded for you here: