Time Contributor | London Bridge
The quacks will not forget.
Three years later, three years later, finally waiting for the release of Shinkai Makoto's new film.
Following on to Your Name. After "Weather Child", this is also the third time that Shinkai Makoto's works have landed on the mainland big screen.
Last week, the director himself personally came to China for premiere promotion, and the degree of hard work was no less than that of domestic entertainment stars.
Before its release, the film's pre-sale box office in the mainland had exceeded the 100 million mark, greatly surpassing the "Your Name" that year. Leave the grades, and are you ready for the appointment?
"Journey to the Bell Buds"
Last year, after the film was released in Japan, the box office also refreshed "Your Name" in the first weekend. record.
In the end, with a record of more than 14 billion yen, it won the 2nd place in the Japanese film box office list in 2022 and the 15th place in film history.
This year, it was shortlisted for the Berlin Film Festival and was praised by foreign media as "Shinkai Makoto's best work so far".
Here's the question -
It really goes beyond Your Name. ", become Makoto Shinkai's new masterpiece?
Ms. Suzuya, please close the door
As Makoto Shinkai's eighth work in 20 years, "Journey to Suzuya" can be regarded as the "masterpiece" of his directorial style.
However, unlike previous creations that were only based on pure love and fantasy (science fiction), Makoto Shinkai made a new attempt this time.
He tried to create a "road movie" full of rich looks.
The story begins with Suzuya, a 17-year-old girl living in Kyushu, Japan.
One day on her way to school, she happened to meet Kusanagi, a young man who was a "closed door teacher".
Later, Suzuya strays into a ruins and accidentally opens the mysterious "Towards Door", causing disaster in the local area.
At the same time, doors were opened one by one throughout Japan.
In order to prevent the outbreak of a larger crisis, Suzuya and Kusata embark on a "closed door" journey full of thrills and unknowns together.
To talk about the entertainment of the film, not long after the opening, the handsome male protagonist Kusanagi has become a children's chair with only three legs, and also has a wonderful emotional line with Suzuya.
And during the entire journey, Suzuya had to hold the male protagonist of the chair and frantically chase a white cat named "Minister".
Along the way, I met various local people, and found help and healing from them.
In addition, "Journey to the Bell Buds" has created a lot of novel settings, in addition to the highlights mentioned above, there are Chang Shi, Vermi, Stone and so on.
To understand the seemingly complex and massive worldview, the key word is only one word:
Door.
The "household di" in the original title "Suzuya Todi" means "closed"
The door in the setting is equivalent to an enchantment, and when opened to the door, it can lead to the ordinary world behind it.
However, Changshi is a place where only the dead can go, and the "vermido" in Changshi is a kind of earthquake source giant beast that will cause great damage to the earth. After the door is opened, the vermicom will rush to the human world, causing an earthquake.
Thus, closed doors were born, who for generations were responsible for closing the door and preventing the spread of disaster.
In the movie, Makoto Shinkai combines Japanese myths and legends to directly design the frequent earthquake phenomena in his country as the everlasting vermicom, and visually visualize it with a very shocking embodiment.
The original intention of the creation of "Suzubud Journey" was to use the Japanese earthquake as the background of the story.
Suzuya and Kusata's closing tour, which starts from Kyushu and passes through Miyazaki and Kansai to Tokyo, is equivalent to crossing the whole of Japan and taking viewers back to the earthquake ruins of these cities.
Suzuya's life is also related to the earthquake, and her behavior of needing to close the door is set as a kind of self-redemption under the trauma of the earthquake.
It can be seen that Makoto Shinkai has rarely added social thinking to his new work.
This is not often seen in his previous works, but it is also reserved early on for foreshadowing.
Trilogy of disasters
In 2016, with the box office hit "Your Name. , Shinkai Makoto is completely out of the circle.
In Japan, he became another animation director after Hayao Miyazaki to exceed 10 billion yen at the box office.
In China, the film is still the highest-grossing Japanese film imported from the mainland (575 million yuan).
Since then, he has maintained the creative speed of three years, and continued to bring "Weather Child" and "Journey to the Bell Bud" with equally good results, and it has to be said that the output is really stable.
Obviously, the three films are almost copy-and-paste in style and theme, but they also represent Makoto Shinkai's current ambitions.
As we all know, wallpaper-level exquisite painting, highly infectious high-energy soundtrack, especially delicate character shaping and emotional portrayal, have always been the standard of Brother Cheng's works.
However, these are just the "faces" of a movie.
Now, he pays more attention to the "Riko" of creation.
In the new creative stage, he officially bid farewell to the early private expression of Haruki Murakami, choosing to place his stories in the modern urban context, and strive to pay attention to reality.
In Shinkai's view, the three recent works can be collectively called its own "disaster trilogy".
His inspiration came from his deep feelings about the 3.11 East Japan Earthquake.
"Your name. The extraterrestrial meteorite, the abnormal rainstorm of "Children of the Weather", and the earthquake disaster of "Journey to Bell Bud".
In fact, it all points to the hidden pain and stubborn diseases of Japanese society, as well as the uncertainty of the human living environment.
In his new work, he even chose to face the victims of the earthquake head-on, just to remind people not to forget the past easily.
From Iwate Prefecture, which was smashed into a crater by a meteorite, to Tokyo City, which was flooded by torrential rain, to the earthquake that affected Japan everywhere.
Xinhai Cheng has gone further and deeper, and at the level of expression, it has upgraded every time.
At the same time, for fans, the trilogy connects a wonderful "Shinkai Makoto universe".
Remember Taki and Mitsuba as adults, cameo in "Weather Child"?
Some of the familiar elements in "Journey to the Bell Buds" this time also gave enough space for the brain.
Although the topic he wants to express is slightly heavy, Makoto Shinkai, who is now more mature, can still balance the commercial attributes of the film.
After all, from "Your Name. At the beginning, he carefully designed the emotional beat of each story with the rhythm standard of commercial films.
Therefore, in Makoto Shinkai's works, we can always easily resonate emotionally with the protagonist.
In any case, he hopes to provide an emotional outlet for more audiences through the animation form he is good at, and realize the entertainment effect of the film.
Just like the story of "Journey to the Bell Bud", it completely abandons preaching, and only tries to let everyone bring into the perspective of the girl Suzu Bud, and after experiencing adventure and growth, completely reconcile with the past and regain hope.
And the "earthquake" disaster in the film can be seamlessly switched to "epidemic".
After three years of bleak present, we may be able to feel the pain more and need it more urgently.
Hayao Miyazaki's successor
For a long time, Shinkai Makoto has been regarded by the outside world as the "successor of Hayao Miyazaki".
In the face of such statements, he will always humbly say that he will never catch up with the master, and he has no intention of becoming the second Miyazaki.
However, Makoto Shinkai's "imitation" of Hayao Miyazaki never seems to stop.
In his early years, "Children Chasing Stars" suffered box office Waterloo due to its clumsy imitation of Ghibli.
Years later, "Weather Child", at the end, you can see Chihiro and Hakuryu's high-altitude circle skills reappear.
When it came to "Journey to the Bell Bud", Makoto Shinkai directly poked himself as a tribute to "The Witch's House".
A comparison between the two movies, indeed.
Whether it's elements like girls, cute cats, road adventures, or the core of the story of helping others gain courage and growth, there are many similarities.
In addition, the "ordinary world" scene in "Suzuya" that connects the two worlds of yin and yang is difficult not to remind people of the scene where Chihiro takes a train and passes through the spirit world.
As a world-class top animation director, Miyazaki will undoubtedly have a profound impact on every newcomer.
Makoto Shinkai is no exception.
Judging from the answers handed over by "Suzuya Journey", he is approaching Miyazaki little by little.
If we say that Miyazaki's works represent post-war Japan.
Makoto Shinkai is documenting Japan in the new era, while also inheriting Ghibli's speculation on the relationship between humans and nature.
Today, he is indeed the "successor of Hayao Miyazaki".
And we can also look forward to it, on this road of continuous progress of masters, Shinkai Makoto can bring more masterpieces that exceed expectations.
As for whether "Journey to the Bell Buds" can surpass "Your Name". 》？ The answer is left to you to walk into the cinema and reveal it yourself!