Taste note item 1. Movie Suzume (스즈메의 문단속)

1. Background

The preference note originated from the class I took as a junior in college. Unfortunately, I don't remember the name of the class. Still, the project's primary task was to find out my taste and preferences and record the activity with short essays, pictures, recordings, and videos. Well, at that time, I barely understood the underlying meaning of the class; simply happy about easy homework. However, a few days ago, I suddenly remembered the class experience and decided to do the project on my own.

2. Necessity

Starting these concerns is indeed a privilege of today's lifestyle, where I have a lot of time to play leisurely and think about myself. I decided to resume this old project because I felt the necessity to look back at things I like and why I like them. Here, the emphasis is on why.

 

The most suffering moment in my career was when I couldn't find the meaning of my work. It was so hard to bear this meaninglessness because it gave me a sense that I made a wrong choice regarding my job. As I decided to do the job because I liked it and thought the commitment was meaningful, this sudden meaningless was hard to withstand. If this scepticism persists for a long time, I will eventually fall into a slump, which is the moment I want to avoid the most. But instinctively, I feel that the time of meaninglessness will often come to me in my career life, and I thought I needed something to pull myself together at such a moment.

 

Looking back, when I was a student, I had a favourite architect, an architecture I liked, and I thought that architecture was so meaningful to the world. However, those memories are now weathered, and even the tastes are pushed back by so-called realistic things, so only dust accumulates on them. Therefore, the purpose of the taste note project is to take out what I liked and find the reasons for my favourite things. Consequently, I hope these reasons will guide me whenever I suffer from a sense of meaninglessness.

 

Suzume movie poster

3. Taste note item 1: Movie Suzume (영화 스즈메의 문단속)

As most of the people like Japanese animation movies, so do I. My love of animated films continued from my school days. When I was a middle school student, I was seriously into a comic named Naruto. I collected hundreds of Naruto comic books (but couldn't collect them all) and even interpreted the real world with Naruto's worldview to some extent at a young age. Later, the love continued to One Piece, Death Note, and Attack Titan, but it ceased in the second year of high school. People will agree that enjoying cartoon series is a seriously time-consuming hobby. From the moment I hold the first volume, I become a slave to this universe. I spend my time worrying about when the next book will come out. However, for high school students in Korea, it is a luxurious hobby, so it has become a hobby that remains only a childhood memory. However, the taste inherited a less time-consuming hobby: movie animations.

 

The movie's storyline is about the adventure of Suzume's struggles to protect the world from the disastrous earthquake. The film has a unique worldview about why earthquakes occur, which is connected with traditional Japanese religion. Just like in other movies of Shinkai Makoto, the background drawing and colouring is astonishingly beautiful. So then, why do I love Japanese Animation? Which traits of these movie appeals to me that strongly? Below are the three reasons I analyzed.

3-1.  It's about adventure

I like adventure stories because from there, I could have vicarious satisfaction about the ecstasy when the characters face struggles and finally break through hardships. A notable point is that I especially like that they overcome difficulties by cooperating with each other, not alone. The contents of my dream prove that I especially love adventures with friends. I always dream about something unrealistic; in most cases, I'm having some adventure with known or unknown people around me. There, we struggle to clear the quests in the dream setting. Considering the fact I really enjoyed and passionately participated in completing contests with my friends, I should admit that I love the feeling of accomplishing and troubleshooting together with reliable team members. 

3-2. It's unrealistic

In the movie Suzume, the earthquake occurs because of the release of the Mimiz. Mimiz is embodied figuration of the disasters. Usually, Mimiz is sealed with two cat sealing stones, one in the East and another in the West. However, sometimes the strength of sealing stones gets weaker and the power of Mimiz leaks through designated doors. So the job of another main character Sota is to check the doors(문단속), which are scattered around the cities of Japan regularly, whether it is open or not. The main story starts when Suzume accidentally pull out one of the sealing stone.

 

I mean, it's nonsense. There are scientific reasons why earthquake occurs, and the job of Sota is now handled by seismic professionals who anticipate seismic actions and possibilities. Nonetheless, these kinds of fantasies always attract me. I can fulfil my thirst for a new world that I have never experienced before through a movie. Well, in most cases, the movie's fictional settings have symbolic meaning that represents the real world. However, besides that interpretation, I want to accept the fictional world just as it is. I just love to escape to the fantasy world and feel the joy of expectation that there might exist a universe depicted as the film. Who knows?

3-3. It's visually astonishing

The last point is about its visual surprise and graphic technology that allows the realization of eye-catching images. Shinkai Makoto is unrivalled in illustrating the effects of lights on objects. One step further from depicting them in a highly realistic manner, he knows to catch the essential beauty from the phenomenon. Therefore, audiences are captured by the daunting feeling of the landscape illustration while watching the movie. It's just like continuously looking at the sunrise or sunset moment in the most picturesque sunset spot on the earth.

Through the fact that I love visual stimulation, I once again realized that I'm more interested in producing something visible and tangible. For example, as a student, I believed that images or physical models should tell almost everything about the project. Therefore, I think architects should avoid talking, instead showing their concepts through sketches, drawings and models, not to mention they should be super visually attractive. However, in contrast to this viewpoint, I was never a student with delicate mastery; therefore, the gap between ideal and reality always bothered me.