'Suzume' returns the anime to the Berlinale two decades after the triumph of 'Spirited Away'

In 2002 Hayao Miyazaki's

became the first animated film to win an A-class festival with its Golden Bear from that Berlinale.

He did it

along with

by Paul Greengrass, but the glory went to the Japanese maestro.

Known by a small group of faithful, its audience suddenly multiplied, it won the Oscar in its category and from that moment almost all the major festivals in the world began to include animated films, especially anime, in their competition sections.

Not all: it took 21 years for the German contest to schedule another anime in its competition.

The witness has been inherited by

by Makoto Shinkai, on a day, this Thursday, in which another animation title was also screened, the Chinese

, by Liu Jian, who had already competed at the 2017 Berlinale with the splendid

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The thread that unites Miyazaki with Shinkai is powerful.

The latter has paid homage to the former in various ways at the Berlinale.

The disciple always praises the master.

was released

in 2016, it became the second highest-grossing Japanese film ever... behind

It raised 233 million dollars in his country, but abroad he earned another 332 million, and at the global box office it did surpass Miyazaki's drama.

“I was starting my career in animation when I saw

The idea that Japanese animation could reach that level of notoriety was incredible and I never thought that I would be in that same range.

That today I am competing in Berlin two decades after Miyazaki can only make me feel deeply honored”, Shinkai told the press in Germany.

Furthermore, in

the two protagonists travel through Japan, in a constant change of scenery as Miyazaki also did in

Although in the case of

the populations are all real.

Of course, the first city that appears is the one considered the cradle of Japan, which is located on the island of Kyushu and is called —coincidences of life that do not seem so much in the script— Miyazaki.

The actress Nanoka Hara, who gives the voice to Suzume, and the director Makoto Shinkai enter the red carpet of the Berlinale with the chair that accompanies the protagonist.HANNIBAL HANSCHKE (EFE)

With

—which opens in Spain on April 14—

Shinkai reaches his seventh feature film.

(2019) did not leave such a good taste in the mouth as the latter, another of his fantastic trips carried out with adolescent protagonists.

In this case, she is the 16-year-old girl whose name gives the film its title and who has lived with her aunt since the terrible earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011 that caused 16,000 deaths and the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. .

Currently, she crosses her steps with a twenty-something, Sota, who asks her about some ruins.

She secretly follows him and discovers that she is dedicated to closing magical doors through which gigantic fire worms appear, an animated representation of what seismic waves would be.

For generations, the de Sota family has fought to prevent earthquakes and prevent disasters.

A curse causes the boy to end up locked in a three-legged child's chair,

Sota and Suzume, the leading couple in the new Makoto Shinkai film.

Thus, Shinkai's hyper-realistic strokes coexist with his passion for fantasy.

“Almost all anime, whether series or movies, are based on manga [the highest-grossing movie in Japanese history,

from 2020, followed that path].

Miyazaki often uses his own stories, and so do I: I prefer original ideas.

It worries me that the young creators who are also committed to not adapting previous material are having so little echo in my country and in the rest of the world”, comments the filmmaker.

01:11

Trailer for 'Art College 1994'

The two leading friends of 'Art College 1994'

's release

in Japan, Shinkai realized that his last three films could be considered a trilogy and that it was time to change course.

“What happens is that for now I have no idea.

And I will take time, because I have to promote

all over the world first, ”he confesses.

has been received

in the German capital, with great applause and critics very much in favor of the film, the trip will be pleasant.

Liu Jian poses in front of the photographers before the press conference for 'Art College 1994'.HANNIBAL HANSCHKE (EFE)

Just the opposite of

titled

, premiered at the Berlinale in 2017 ,

the comments were absolutely appreciative and many critics missed this title in the list of winners.

So the projection of his next work attracted enormous interest, which has collapsed due to the leadenness of Jian's proposal.

The room of the students of 'Art College 1994'

Art College 1994

is inspired by the filmmaker's apprentice years and portrays the discussions on tradition and modernity, art and philosophy, of a group of students from the Southeast China Academy of Art.

Before the press, its author explained: “Those were years in which, full of hope and ideals, we passionately lived artistic creation.

At the same time, society was transforming in a gigantic way and everything emanated hope”.

The filmmaker remembers "the discussions about moral and artistic dilemmas, about the creative goals we aspired to achieve."

And that in the film he hopes to have been able to reflect his feeling of inhabiting "in the nineties at the same time a real world, that of classes, and a surreal, artistic one."

Unfortunately, the conversations that should be the narrative engine weigh down due to fatigue and become the brake on a plot that lacks jolts.

The animation inherits that same fascinating clear line from

, but everything surprising that exploded in that

has turned into monotony and leaden shots, into boys who talk without doing anything in

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