The Makoto Shinkai interview: On ‘Suzume’ and the universal language of his films

“I’m trying to accept the fact that I’m going to completely turn a blind eye to the love story between a high school girl and a little yellow chair,” he said. Suzume Trailer from the YouTube page Rotten Tomatoes Trailers.It’s the sum total of the best feelings I can find. A movie by Makoto Shinkai, a legend in the Japanese anime world. Garden of Words, your name, Weathering with youand now Suzume —as whimsical and emotionally candid as the excitement they generate. He deals with perhaps the oldest anime staples (teenage love and loss, environmental cataclysms), but gives them his own unique twist.

Two days before the release in India, I met with Shinkai at a luxury hotel in Mumbai. SuzumeThe film is dubbed in Hindi. Domestic distribution by PVR Pictures. Next to Maumi is a replica of the aforementioned yellow chair. In the film, it belongs to Suzume Iwato, a 17-year-old high school girl whose mission is to close interdimensional doors that appear throughout Japan. So, an earthquake that caused a violent tsunami hit the island nation. Suzume accompanies Sōta on this journey with a mysterious handsome stranger. -A chair with legs.

With his geeky mop top and round glasses, Shinkai looks very much like an anime creator. In 2019, his teenage Divisht his pancholi, an Indian from Jaipur, launched a petition on change.org for its release. Weathering with you in india. Got all 20 signatures in his first week. But when he went viral on his Indian anime YouTube channel, the number reached 50,000. Shinkai saw the petition (and more), agreed to his first theatrical release in India, and flew to Delhi to meet with fans called “geeks”… youths.

Through an interpreter, Shinkai spoke about his huge and vociferous fandom in India, the impact the 2011 earthquake had on his life and art, and the painstaking process of animating Nikko in his film. . excerpt…

Your film opens with a simple, naturalistic setting before the characters are drawn into a fantasy or sci-fi plot. When did this obsession with giving ordinary humans extraordinary abilities start?

In my films, whatever you call supernatural, sci-fi, or fantasy is just a way of showing that something bigger than us has happened. I think it’s a language that every human being can understand. In a two-hour movie, giving characters supernatural powers or a higher purpose can explain how the human mind suddenly grows bigger under extraordinary circumstances.

You dealt with natural disasters in your previous two films, your name and Weathering with you. but, Suzume is a more direct story about the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake. Given that this topic is very sensitive to Japanese audiences, were you worried about how it would play out?

Yes, it’s a very raw theme. Many people lost many things in the earthquake. Movies are entertainment after all, so I had to be careful. Twelve years have passed since our country was hit by that disaster. You can interpret it as a very short period of time or a very long period of time, for example my daughter is 12 years old. This just happened when she was born and she knows nothing about it.So she felt like it was the right time for her to make a movie like this Suzume Helping a new generation of young Japanese understand what people have been through.

Like rain and clouds, sunlight plays an important visual role in short films to movies. she and her cat (1999) in monochrome and all subsequent features in color. How do you conceptualize this?

I am glad that you noticed. This is not a specific skill or technique, but simple craftsmanship. Suzume There are about 2000 cuts. Normally, when animating, the character’s color palette and background are determined. And the color stays the same day and night. But my taste is not. Early morning light is always different than midday light. It changes every hour. So my team and I have a hard time actually sitting down and changing shades as needed.

What do you think about India’s huge anime subculture, and would you like to collaborate with Indian artists and storytellers in the future?

The first time I got to know Indian fans was through a petition. When I got here, I was very impressed to see many young people singing along to my movie songs. They knew the lyrics! India has a special place in my heart. As my films grow, I feel like my fans grow with them. We hope to come back to India whenever we have something new to offer. It gives me the opportunity to be among people who love me and my work.

For the collaboration bit, the simple answer is no. (smile)But I learn a lot every time I watch an Indian movie. I appreciate the value of Indian entertainment and its scale and effort. It’s very different from how Hollywood approaches art.

Garden of Words (2013) is perhaps the most grounded work about a boy in Tokyo who meets and falls in love with an older woman.Fans believe that Yukari Yukino’s character was inspired by someone in your life (she your name)…

I know you expect to hear the name of a lovely lady.But the real answer is that it’s me: Makoto Shinkai! Garden of Words, I showed you a 27-year-old Yukino who was a little lost in life. When I was her age, I was still working as a regular employee at a game company. But I wanted to do something more with my life. So I went home after a day’s work and started working on the animation. It was a challenging and uncertain stage in my life.

achieve blockbuster success your name and Weathering with you Has it changed you as an artist nationally or internationally?

Rather than saying that I have changed, I would like to think that the world around me has changed. I learned to discover my work.What was put into the movie is the same as it was back then Garden of WordsAs a storyteller, I really want to connect with people. It means a lot to me when someone comes to me and says that the film changed them or moved them, made them feel heard or seen. But my heart remains the same when it comes to what I want to do as an artist.

The End of the Sparrow will hit theaters across India on April 21st