After winning the award for best animated feature film in Sitges with his fifth film, Your name. (2016), the Japanese Makoto Shinkai (Koumi, 1973) became the great phenomenon of anime, continuing his romance with Spanish viewers by presenting his next film in San Sebastián, El tiempo contigo (2019). His most ambitious proposal to date, Suzume, the story of an orphan who finds doors in abandoned places that are the passageway to parallel worlds, hits Spanish billboards this week after having its international presentation at the last Berlin Festival. Who for many is the successor to Hayao Miyazaki in Japanese animation, spoke exclusively by videoconference with La Vanguardia during a recent visit to Mexico City.
Are you surprised that this story, which is very Japanese, is so well received internationally?
The truth is that I am quite surprised by the international positive reaction that Suzume is having. Although to carry out this film I thought of countries where natural disasters occur, such as Japan, it is incredible that it has also hit hard in places where this type of disaster does not exist and I am very pleased with that.
When you started writing the script, was it clear to you that teenager Suzume was going to deal with a lot of trauma in this story?
Yes, because Suzume was thought of as an orphan from a huge catastrophe that happened in Japan. She has a different perspective than others because she lived tragic experiences in which she lost many loved ones and people around her that she knew. That is key, it was the starting point of everything.
This film talks about making friends with the inevitable...
That's how it is. Suzume addresses the topic of how we deal with the inevitable. In Japan we never know when a city will be completely wiped out by an earthquake, but despite having to deal with such feelings on a daily basis, knowing that an inevitable seismic catastrophe will one day come, we must find hope that allows us to carry on. with our lives and that concept was the one that gave rise to this film.
Your inspiration for this film were earthquakes, but where does your fascination with doors and cats come from?
Doors fascinate me because for me they are a symbol of everyday life and the latter is something that earthquakes interrupt, so that day-to-day life is affected by natural disasters. Regarding cats, I feel that they represent a natural evolution and that they also have a special character that embodies the capricious side that the gods have, therefore I believe that it is the animal that perfectly symbolizes these issues and that is why its presence is very strong in this movie.
What other things have influenced when creating Suzume?
When I was a child I lived in a small town that was located in the middle of the mountains and I always wondered what was beyond, what new events or occurrences were taking place and how many unknown people existed. That desire to discover new things and to be in a place where unexpected encounters could happen stayed with me and came to light in this film, I think that all those questions from my childhood have crept into Suzume, as in some way also into the rest of my works.
In the film, abandoned places play a very important role. Is there a message in that theme or is it just a narrative device?
For me, abandoned places represent scars on countries and Japan has more and more of them for various reasons, sometimes because natural disasters prevent people from living there and sometimes because the Japanese population is declining, there are more and more fewer inhabitants. The most prominent example is the town of Ōkuma, where the Fukushima nuclear plant operated and which, after its reactor accident, became a ghost zone.
What is it about fantastic stories that attracts you?
Human beings harbor an important variety of different and mixed feelings, such as sadness or joy, love or hate, and they do not change as we grow and move forward in our lives. To be able to compete, in a period of two hours, with real life, you have to make the audience feel a lot of emotions, that's why I think that fantasy is a useful tool to achieve it.
You studied literature at university, do you sometimes feel that your films have a literary touch?
When I was making my first films there were a lot of images that were like monologues that were repeated over and over again. Over time I realized that if I wanted to reach a wider audience, I had to start representing stories in my works, and that led me to move away from literature a bit. I believe that now my creations, and thanks to the help of my entire team, are no longer representations of novels but of entertainment and fun.
Every day there is more talk about the use of artificial intelligence in art, including anime. What is your position?
The truth is that I don't have a very strong opinion regarding artificial intelligence because I haven't used it yet in the creation of my films, but I think it can be a convenient tool when carrying out artistic works, since it probably It can make certain tasks easier. At the same time, I have an optimistic outlook on this because I feel that artificial intelligence is really not going to replace human labor but rather help us, in the same way that computers do or once did. the typewriters.
How strong was Hayao Miyazaki's influence on you as an animator?
Mizayaki had a huge influence on me, especially as a teenager, as I was a total fan of his. I was always self-taught and the truth is that I learned a lot about how to make anime through his works. His storyboards, which were sold in book form, were very helpful to me, I loved reading them.
Do you feel that in your current cinema there is also an influence of Miyazaki?
Yes, what I learned from Hayao is still important in my works today, for example, in Suzume there are certain elements and ways of portraying them that are influenced by those of Nicky, the witch's apprentice. Of course I don't want to make movies exactly like his, on the contrary, I would like to carry out projects that Miyazaki would never have been able to do. I know I have to go in another direction because even if I followed the same line as Miyazaki, I couldn't get to where he did, so I've had to find my own path and constantly move along it.
What current anime creators do you admire?
I don't know if there are other directors who have influenced me as strongly as Miyazaki, but there are novelists and writers, such as Haruki Murakami, who has a novel called Kafka on the shore in which there are certain elements that have inspired me at the time. of making Suzume, such as, among them, the cat Otsuka with whom Satoru Nakata's character speaks.
