Exclusive: Suzume director Makoto Shinkai on turning real disasters into uplifting stories
David Craig In an exclusive interview, Makoto Shinkai opened up about how he conceptualised the film as a light-hearted way of dealing with grief.
Your Name and Weathering With You deal with disasters but you haven't made a direct reference to the 2011 earthquake and tsunami till Suzume. What are the challenges of bringing that to the screen?
Well, I'll be honest, I personally got a huge shock when I saw the scale of the tragedy that happened back 12 years ago during the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. As an animation director, it was always at the back of my mind that if I have to process my grief through my work how can I show it in a way that is palatable to people? You've caught on to it actually because I've been carrying this grief in my heart. I wanted to put it into movies but it's too raw. That's why I couldn't directly reference it in Your Name or Weathering With You. I felt I wasn't ready to put that in my script and the audience wasn't ready to see that either. That's why there are indirect references like the torrential rains and climate change in my previous films. But I never really felt I was brave enough. Now 12 years have passed and it's still inside me so I felt with Suzume, I'm ready and the audience in Japan is slightly ready for that direct reference so that's why it happened.
What was the key to balancing the beauty and comedy with the grief and disaster elements of this film?
It's important because when I'm asking people to take their time to come out and watch a movie, how can I say to them that I've made a serious movie with a heavy topic and it's all sad but please come watch it? That's unfair to them and it would be a disservice as an entertainment director. The idea is always that you have to package it in a way that the message might be serious but it's a joyful experience for the viewers. So you're right, it's a conscious decision to balance it and get the serious message out in my movie. But I do it in a way that people would want to watch. When I do that I think of it this way - I want a fun character, a cute character. So I turned Souta into a chair. I wanted to send a message that he's not perfect so I made him a three-legged chair. It carries the message in a fun way.
The worm and the act of closing doors are such interesting devices. How did you come up with that?
It comes from many different things. Japan has had earthquakes since forever. In the olden days, people had to explain to themselves why the earth was shaking. So there used to be a belief that there is a giant dragon that used to sit beneath the earth and when he moves and shakes his tail the earth trembles. That is the old folk tale that we had in Japan so I took inspiration from that. But instead of making a literal dragon, I turned it into a huge worm. For the door, I usually give a lot of thought to what is normal. What is our everyday life and how do I show a symbol for that? The door is a nice symbol because our day starts when we open a door, we come back to relax at home through the door. And you know it's your house, your everyday existence. So it's very symbolic that behind the door and in front of the door there are two sides to your existence. It represents normalcy.
What were the notes you gave the animation team for designing the landscape of the Ever-After?
My first cue about it came from the Japanese language. We call the ever world Tokyo so the letter for that is symbolised as every day which is Toko and yo which is night so it's a place with no concept of time. A day melts into night. The idea is that when you die you go to a place where time stretches on endlessly. That is the first hint I had on how to depict the Ever-after. And so I interpreted it in my own way. Instead of showing a place that has no night, I created a place that has everything. It has a morning light, evening light and everything at the same time. It's a world where everything exists. That's how I explained it to the animation team and we came up with how the setting will look in the Ever-After.
How did you blend the traditional aspects with modern bits like Daijin going viral on social media?
My intention was to just show the way people live. When I see young people in Mumbai, I see the same thing, with your gadgets and you're leading a modern life. But I also see that there are mandirs everywhere. As humans, we live with this contrast every day. We might have the technology and the scientific knowledge but there is a part of us which is not about reasoning and logic. We have our emotions and our faith. These are different parts of ourselves that exist together. That's why I have a character like Daijin who goes viral on social media.
What is your process of creating imaginative worlds while dealing with isolation?
There is no way to do it other than through it. There's no big secret to doing this except to get down to it. When I wrote the script Tokyo was in lockdown during the pandemic. You can't go out or go for a holiday. You can't do anything except sit at your desk. But I'll tell you a secret. I used to sneak out and I had to go to a place where there's nobody. So I used to go to a cemetery. I used to go to this graveyard in Tokyo and I used to walk around. Since nobody was there I could take my mask off and sit there among the gravestones. There are all these people who are no longer with us who are lying there sleeping. It used to give me time to think in the middle of the pandemic. I think that idea seeped into Suzume as well of people who are living forever and I'm alone among them.
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