Makoto Shinkai is a hack director! By that, I do not mean he is bad in all aspects, on the contrary, he is obviously very good at art direction. If nothing else his movies always look pretty. His films are very pretty with little to no substance if anything. So many of Shinkai´s shortcomings would be mitigated had he simply worked with a better script writer. He is simply not very good at the story part of a movie. He is good at creating moments and feelings like in 5 centimeters per second, where he conveys the loss of childhood and love without saying much. This minimalistic style is not enough when it comes to a feature-length film.
What makes Makoto Shinkai’s film so bad? Well, it’s not so much that he is not capable of making a good movie. I mildly enjoyed Children Who Chase Lost Voices and I really did like Your Name. The problem is that after Your Name, his films have become more or less the exact same thing. This is why I call him a hack. Even if he tries something new in theory, his films are so similar overall that I am shocked he gets away with it every time.
Let’s explore Shinkai as a director and break down where his flaws are.
Makoto Shinkais’s first couple of movies are in my opinion at least LIFE THREATENING DULL AND BORING.
The Place Promised in Our Early Days
5 Centimeters per Second
The Garden of Words
Are all about love and how love fades over time. The theme and visuals play into Shinkai´s strength. They look pretty and the simple story masquerades Shinkai’s weaknesses.
Especially The Place Promised in Our Early Days is so mind-numbingly uninteresting, tedious, and bland. All the characters talk in this strange whisper-like voice. There is no vocal inflection, so the already boring narrative is further kept down by uninteresting characters and dull voice acting. Everybody talks all sad and quiet all the time.
The movies are all very similar in theme and presentation. A young couple falls in love, but this love fades over time and distance. In the end, the movies all end with a love that cannot be. They convey a kind of childhood melancholia. The Garden of Words is a little different since it’s a young student who falls in love with his teacher (and her feet) though the two main characters still do not end up together.
In 2016 Makoto Shinkai released a career-defining work Kimi No Nawa (Your name). The movie became a monster hit in Japan being the highest-grossing film in the country’s history, and a big hit in the West. The movie was such a big hit that it would change his future films, thus splitting his filmography into 2.
The first part is the films we already discussed in which love doesn’t win, where love fades with time and dies. After Kimi No Nawa the theme would be that of love being tested and in the end, love would win.
After Your Name, he made Weathering With You. A movie that is.. How should I say it.. Very reminiscent of Your Name.
The characters look identical and are even more forgettable. I get that Shinkai has a style and all, but the “pretty” visuals are not enough anymore, he has to bring more into the story department.
This brings us to his latest movie and the inspiration for this post Suzume.
Suzume is bad
Suzume is not a good film. It follows a girl whose name I can’t remember and I won’t be looking up because I don’t care. On her way to school, she meets a boy and is instantly drawn to him. Normally you would have a scene or two to establish a connection, but this movie is in a hurry, anyway, he turns into a chair and they have to close some portals, there are also cats who are Gods and so on.
I’m just going to say it. Having the main guy turn into a chair, even though it has emotional significance is a profoundly stupid idea for a film. The film is properly nice looking like the rest, I wouldn’t know since the whole Shinkai aesthetic has lost all charm at this point. The final climax is unbelievably underwhelming where he tries to go the route of adventure like a Ghibli film, but ends off more like his previous film Children Who Chase Lost Voices. It’s supposed to be a big epic conclusion, but it falls flat on its face.
The main girl has been living with her aunt since her mother died. There is a bit of tension between the two where the aunt has spent her best years looking out for her. In a rather strange scene toward the end, the aunt and the main girl are screaming at each other saying a lot of nasty things to each other. Their tension over the years has been building up. When they are done it appears the aunt was under the influence of another cat God, who just happens to be at the gas station I guess.
She says she did not mean it. This conflict is never brought up again. The movie is trying to have its cake and eat it too. It wants the illusion of conflict in the form of family drama, yet it doesn’t commit to it since it has to be a good-time kind of movie about love. If anything the aunt sub-plot is a distraction from the film and could be left out internally. The handwave all the real tension that could exist with the excuse of “a God made me do it”
Shinkai is a hack
My thesis for this post is the idea that Shinkai is a hack, not to say a bad director, though he is an awful screenwriter. Before Your Name, he could (almost) only do sad, slow-moving, pretty films about love fading with time or distance. However, it seems he is chasing the Your Name formula now. Let me explain.
One thing that I really liked in your name was the use of music. The way the insert songs were used was masterful. At the end of Your Name, the two main characters are standing on each train. Remember Shinkai has a history up to this point to end his films with no happy ending, but this doesn’t happen in your name. The two characters lock eyes, and the camera pans up as the music swells. In the end, they meet and it’s a happy ending. How nice.
In weathering with you at the end the main guy sees the main girl, the camera pans quickly and the music swells once again with a good insert song. It doesn’t quite work as well as in Your name, but it still works.
In Suzume he tries the same damn thing again, however, there is NO emotional resonance this time. The characters are less memorable and with even less personality than in the two other films. Toward the end of the film, I asked myself. “Do I even want them to get together”. The truth is I did not care at all.
This is why Makoto Shinkai is a hack. Even though his films are different in plot, he tries his hardest to hit the same tired emotional beats as he always does. If he combined his strong visual style with an actual good screenwriter I’m sure his film would be way better, but until then.