Why Makoto Shinkai Made a Talking Chair the Heart of ‘Suzume’
thewrap.com“Suzume” hits American theaters this weekend after taking the world by storm. Since its Berlin Film Festival premiere, critics have praised this coming-of-age tale about a teenager who lost her mother in the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and about the many ways natural disasters have radically changed Japan.
And on top of all of that, there’s a chase scene between a talking cat and a man transformed into a walking three-legged chair.
That blend of wild fantasy and human drama has been at the heart of much of Shinkai’s work. The acclaimed filmmaker has become a box office titan in Japan since the release of his 2016 movie “Your Name,” which tells the story of two teenagers swapping bodies as they struggle to save thousands from a meteor that could level an entire town.
In “Suzume,” a high school student named Suzume Iwato stumbles into a high-stakes adventure when she encounters Souta, a young man searching for mysterious doors among the abandoned ruins left behind by earthquakes and other natural disasters.
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