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    ‘Suzume’ Review: Gods, Spells and Instagram Posts

    Makoto Shinkai’s latest animated film, about a girl who accidentally unleashes chaos over Japan, is at once mythical and thoroughly modern.Makoto Shinkai is often praised as a descendant of the great Hayao Miyazaki for his masterly animation, and his latest film, “Suzume,” is no exception. The film speaks the same cinematic language, employing an ethereal, emotive color palette that enlivens every splash of water and blade of grass.You can spot Miyazaki’s influence in more than just the visuals. There are familiar symbols and themes: The portal doors, the cursed male hero and a few narrative moves in the resolution all scream Miyazaki’s “Howl’s Moving Castle,” while the exploration of memory and grief mirrors his “Spirited Away.”I’ll stop the Miyazaki comparisons there because Shinkai showcases plenty of his own narrative and directorial signatures in “Suzume.” He’s created a thoroughly modern world of both old and new forms of magic, of spells and old gods and of Instagram posts and texts. Like a locomotive chugging uphill, the story’s stakes are quickly raised to the scale of natural disasters and mythical phenomena, while Shinkai puts an emphasis on specific towns and regions in Japan, grounding us in the real world even as he whisks us away to other worlds.What’s particularly exciting in “Suzume” is the story’s start. Seventeen-year-old Suzume wakes up from an otherworldly dream and heads off to school. On the way, she encounters and tries to follow a mysterious stranger named Souta but ends up in the ruins of an old resort, where she stumbles upon a free-standing door floating in a shallow bank of water. She opens it, and soon flaring wind, flying debris and massive red tendrils reach out and consume the darkening skies of Japan. This is only 10 minutes in. Shinkai doesn’t give you a chance to gauge your interest in its story; he immerses you immediately in the movie’s mythos and spells so that you have no choice but to offer your attention.At the ruins, Suzume finds out she has unwittingly released a cute but troublesome cat-god that Souta calls the keystone, which caused the door to unleash a monstrous earthquake-causing beast beneath Japan. Souta is a “closer,” someone who finds and shuts doors to prevent such destruction — but the keystone has transformed him into a sentient three-legged chair to prevent him from completing his mission. Suzume must then help Souta in an odyssey across Japan, making new friends while the two race to stop a catastrophic equivalent to the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake.It’s not just the drama that works. Shinkai delivers hilarious physical comedy in the awkward gambols and leaps of Souta the three-legged chair — a refreshing reversal of the trope of the handsome young love interest who leads the naïve girl on a journey. Shinkai is nothing if not a sentimental director, but here, instead of making the flirtation between Suzume and Souta the film’s emotional crux, thankfully he focuses in on the relationship between Suzume and her mother, a nurse who died in the aftermath of an earthquake when Suzume was 4.Though the film does work as a metaphor about growth and loss, it never elaborates the rules of its world, which detracts from the narrative. The film, like Shinkai’s last, “Weathering With You,” can’t decide if it wants to be an outright climate change parable or just a fictional story that references real climate disasters. Inspired by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, “Suzume” doesn’t fully square its mythology with those real environmental tragedies — or with humanity’s accountability in the inevitable monstrous acts of the natural world — and what this all means for the film’s plot and resolution. Unclear character motivations and murky magical logistics raise more questions than provide answers.Which is what makes “Suzume” a fascinating, frustrating film. It doesn’t fulfill the promise it made in that truly stellar first act: to launch us into an adventure that crosses regions and planes but lands us steady back on our feet.SuzumeRated PG. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 2 minutes. In theaters. More

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    Growing a Generation of Movie-Loving Global Citizens

    The selections at this year’s New York International Children’s Film Festival blend fantastical elements with serious real-world themes.The characters in the offerings at the 2023 New York International Children’s Film Festival often resolve crises in unexpected ways: by tossing magical seeds. Or slamming enchanted doors. Or, in what may be the most startling example, following a giant porcupine as it lumbers through the streets of Rotterdam.These fantastical elements, however, appear alongside realities that more commercial movies for young people usually avoid. This year’s festival, which begins on Friday evening and continues for three weekends — two in Manhattan and Brooklyn theaters, and one at the Sag Harbor Cinema on Long Island — explores subjects like the civil war in Syria, accelerating threats of natural disaster, the plight of unauthorized immigrants and, in one short documentary, the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on a family with members in both New York and Odesa. Now in its 26th year, the festival seeks not just to entertain young audiences but also to expand their worldviews.“There’s a concerted effort to talk about human rights and focus on global citizenry,” Maria-Christina Villaseñor, the festival’s programming director, said in an interview. But, she added, “I think that playfulness is really rolling out in all kinds of interesting ways throughout our slate.”That menu, comprising 16 features and nearly 60 short films, which will be offered entirely in person for the first time since 2020, begins with Friday’s world premiere of “Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia.” (This title and many others will be shown more than once.) An animated film from France and Luxembourg, it follows Ernest, a gruff but good-hearted bear, and Celestine, a vivacious mouse, as they journey to Ernest’s homeland to have his cherished violin, a “Stradibearius,” repaired. Once there, they’re shocked to learn that the country has prohibited almost all music-making.“Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia,” which will make its world premiere at the festival, follows a bear and a mouse on a wild journey that touches on themes of autocracy and personal autonomy.GKIDS/StudioCanalThe filmmakers, Julien Chheng and Jean-Christophe Roger (Roger will visit the festival for an opening-night Q. and A.), have filled the movie with wild chases, narrow escapes and a full-fledged musical resistance. But it also touches on autocracy and personal autonomy — relevant themes in a world where dissenters are sometimes imprisoned and certain children’s books are being banned.“Kids are able to enter these films at the level that they are comfortable or ready for,” said Nina Guralnick, the executive director of the festival, which offers titles for viewers as young as 3 and has a jury that judges a broad swath of the short films. (The prizewinners then become eligible for Academy Award consideration.) “But that’s also what makes those films last,” she said, “because they will come back and think about them as their thinking becomes more sophisticated.”The Projectionist Chronicles the Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.The Tom Cruise Factor: Stars were starstruck when the “Top Gun: Maverick” headliner showed up at the Oscar nominees luncheon.An Andrea Riseborough FAQ: Confused about the brouhaha surrounding the best actress nominee? We explain why her nod was controversial.Sundance and the Oscars: Which films from the festival could follow “CODA” to the 2024 Academy Awards.A Supporting-Actress Underdog: In “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” don’t discount the pivotal presence of Stephanie Hsu.Marya Zarif, a Syrian-born filmmaker who lives in Montreal, said in a video interview that she intended “Dounia & the Princess of Aleppo,” the Canadian and French animated feature that she directed with André Kadi, to be a festival film to which young viewers can repeatedly return for new insights.Dounia, its vibrant 6-year-old heroine, sees the war steadily encroaching on her joyful life in Syria. But she has powerful protection: nigella seeds, a Middle Eastern spice. In the movie, they have mystical properties that Dounia discovers after she and her grandparents become refugees on a dangerous and sometimes heartbreaking odyssey.“I needed a magic that was rooted in Dounia’s culture,” said Zarif, who will appear via video link for a post-screening Q. and A. on Sunday. “And I needed something very small but that had big effects, like Dounia herself.”The festival also has fare for viewers well into their teens. “Suzume,” an anime feature by Makoto Shinkai that is already a blockbuster in Japan, will receive its North American premiere at the festival on Sunday.The title character, an orphaned high school student who lives with her aunt, encounters Souta, a youth who is “a closer” — one who has the task of shutting ordinary-looking doors that, when left open, unleash terrors like earthquakes and tsunamis. When a spell transforms Souta into a walking, talking chair, Suzume shoulders his world-saving burden.Such stories of female empowerment are a favorite with the festival, which annually features the short-film program “Girls’ POV.” Its offerings this year include a story that illustrates the frustrations of obtaining menstrual products and a documentary about an American all-girl tackle football league.Girls also take charge in the Dutch live-action feature “Okthanksbye,” whose two main characters are deaf 13-year-olds. When the beloved Parisian grandmother of one of the teenagers is hospitalized, they leave their Netherlands boarding school and head to France. Portrayed by Mae van de Loo and Douae Zine El Abidine — young, deaf first-time actresses — the girls embark on an adventure that includes traveling with a female punk band.The film’s director, Nicole van Kilsdonk, who wrote the script with Lilian Sijbesma, said the movie wasn’t meant to be about disability, even though the girls’ situations — one has a cochlear implant; one doesn’t — play a role. Van Kilsdonk, who on Saturday will attend the first of two open-captioned screenings and take part in a sign-language-interpreted discussion, said this coming-of-age story held a universal message: “You can do more than you think.”Douae Zine El Abidine, left, and Mae van de Loo are first-time actresses, both deaf, who play deaf teenagers in the Dutch coming-of-age feature “Okthanksbye.”Labyrint FilmFar more perilous border crossings lie at the heart of the features about immigration. “Home Is Somewhere Else,” a Mexican documentary, chronicles, in their own words, the experiences of young people with different legal statuses. Framed by the spoken-word poetry of José Eduardo Aguilar, who was himself deported from the United States, the film eschews live action in favor of vivid, varied animation.“That also was a way to protect our protagonists’ identity,” said Jorge Villalobos, who wrote and directed the film with Carlos Hagerman. (Hagerman will participate in a Q. and A. after the film’s screening on March 11.) But the men, who dealt with families on each side of the U.S.-Mexico border, also found that animation gave them freedom to employ visual metaphors and depict the world through their subjects’ eyes.“Usually, documentaries are kind of talking about how the system doesn’t work,” Hagerman said. “And we are more into experiencing how does it feel to live in these situations.”Similar struggles infuse “Totem,” Sander Burger’s fictional live-action feature from Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, which focuses on Ama (Amani-Jean Philippe), an 11-year-old whose Senegalese family lives in Rotterdam without documentation. Regarding herself as thoroughly Dutch, Ama ends up on the run and searching for her father after the authorities detain her other relatives. This high-spirited heroine gets aid from her spirit animal, a massive porcupine.The strong language in both immigration-related features hasn’t deterred the festival’s organizers, who provide parental advisories online. And families who may be reluctant to take children into theaters during a virus-filled winter can look forward to the festival’s Kid Flicks National Touring Program, which, in the summer, will begin sharing selections from some of its short-film packages — including Celebrating Black Stories and the Latin-themed ¡Hola Cine! — with museums, libraries and cinemas. (The festival also offers film-based curriculums for schools.)“We think we’ve doubled the number of programs that we send out,” Guralnick said. “And I feel like we just keep adding partners.” All share a goal, she added: “growing that next generation of filmgoers.”The New York International Children’s Film FestivalMarch 3-19; 212-349-0330; nyicff.org. More