Suzume

Suzume (2022) is Makoto Shinkai's animated feature, ready to watch online in high quality. This fantasy drama follows a teenage girl from Kyushu whose curiosity pries open a door that was meant to stay shut for good.

Seventeen-year-old Suzume trails a young traveler who is searching for ruins, and at an abandoned site she finds a lone doorway standing in the grass. She opens it and pulls a stone from the ground, not knowing it was a keystone holding back disaster. From doors like this one, all across Japan, a vast force breaks loose and triggers earthquakes. Her companion is suddenly turned into a small three-legged chair, and together they chase a runaway talking cat the length of the country, sealing each door before it can do harm.

Shinkai, the filmmaker behind Your Name and Weathering with You, closes his loose trilogy about catastrophe here, returning to memory, grief and the longing for a place to come home to. The road trip through Shinto folklore and the ruins of emptied towns builds into a quiet farewell to what cannot be recovered. Stream Suzume (2022) online on iFILM.