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anonymous-dee · 1 year

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Me Oversharing About My Favorite Movie

Okay, so I've been meaning to do a full and intense analysis of "In This Corner of the World" for a WHILE now, but it's been hard to put my words and thoughts together in an articulate manner. I'm going to attempt this time! Whoa! OKAY SO, In This Corner of the World is literally my favorite movie of ALL TIME!!! There is so much symbolism and overlying themes on top of the amazing animation, OST, story, and characters.

So let's start with the fact that I literally love Suzu Urano and relate to her on a spiritual level (she's just like me fr fr). The movie covers her life before, during, and after WW2, and the entire movie is a coming of age story about Suzu's life and how her experiences with the war shape her as a person.

First of all, it's important to establish one key theme that is consistent throughout the movie: Suzu's desire to remain innocent and oblivious, and how the movie employs various scenes in order to depict Suzu's journey through her adolescence and early adulthood.

So let's start off with Suzu's childhood. A lot of her childhood moments are embedded with Japanese folklore and art that literally blend into her reality. As the viewer, it's hard to interpret whether or not she was really kidnapped by the beast character at the beginning when she goes into the city to deliver seaweed. This also occurs when the house spirit shows up at her grandmother's house and starts eating the leftover watermelon rinds (though, Lin turned out to be a real character, so I wonder if Lin was a Yokai after all)? Anyways, the next scene that stood out to me in this regard was when Suzu was painting the water and the white rabbits for Mizuhara's assignment.

There is a scene where Mizuhara is walking away and the animation depicts it in the style of Suzu's painting across the entire screen, as if the realities have blended together.

Lastly, there are all the stories that Suzu would tell her younger sister; All of these factors point to the indisputable fact that Suzu had an amazing imagination in her youth. I'm sure you're wondering why that's significant, if you've read this far, and let me tell you why.

Suzu gets married at 18 years old and moves to Kure to live with her new husband and in-laws. She immediately has to take over for her mother-in-law, who suffers from a bad leg. Suzu's childhood abruptly ends at this point in time. She has to take on the full responsibilities of being a homemaker and serving her community. She almost seems to appear sad about having to grow up so quickly, and I think I can assume this based on how she reacted to Shuzaku asking for her hand in marriage (albeit indirectly through her family), and then her apparent lack of enthusiasm towards getting married.

I'd like to take a moment and project some of my own vibes onto my girl Suzu. So, NOT INCLUDING THE WW2 stuff, I've always found her situation low-key relatable, and yet almost desirable. Let me clarify; I totally understand and empathize and feel and relate towards her innermost feelings of wishing to return to the simpler times of her childhood and to regain that same sense of childhood innocence and simplicity.

But... I sort of inevitably want to romanticize the idea of meeting someone as a child, and then like 10 years later they show up and they're like "hey I never forgot about you, I want to ask for your hand in marriage" and then you go live with a nice family on a pretty mountain and do silly little tasks and chores and cook and clean and water the flowers in the garden... HEAR ME OUT. There's something kind of ideal about that lifestyle, and I'll explain more as to why I think that.

I'm white and American, right? So there's this huge concept for a lot of us that is very distinct from a lot of POC cultures (especially Asian and Hispanic, as far as I know), where our families and our culture value independence and self sufficiency. For a lot of people like me, it's "move out when you're 18, get a good job, provide for yourself, etc." I'm not saying that only white people have this experience, but this is also an American value as well. In many Asian and Hispanic cultures, I know that a lot of people live with their families in intergenerational homes. Grandparents, parents, and children will all share the same space and support each other and live together, and as someone who will never get to experience that it definitely makes me wonder what it is like to grow up in an environment like that.

And it also makes me almost desire Suzu's situation because she lives with an entire household of people who are all working together and supporting each other, and while yes Suzu is the main homemaker, she isn't alone and all of Shusaku's family is supporting her.

Anyways, back to your regularly scheduled entertainment...

There's a lot to say about WW2 and I don't have enough space to write about it. One of the things I find REALLY spectacular about this movie is about its domestic portrayal of the war. And how different I think it is in comparison to most other movies in its genre. I think that most movies that focus on Japan and WW2 employ Hiroshima/Nagasaki and/or a military perspective (please correct me if I'm wrong), or at least that's usually the main things we think about when many of us think of Japan and WW2. So by taking a domestic approach and also combining the overarching genre to be a coming of age story, it can really shed light onto what a regular person's life may have been like throughout the war, and how one's everyday life changes from before wartimes (as well as after). Grave of the Fireflies also does this very well.

War changes people (duh). But it's a very interesting concept to see how WW2 affects the people who are not actively fighting in the war, and how their daily life changes. (Am I being redundant? I apologize oof lol).

Not only did growing up affect Suzu's innocence, but the war essentially and eventually smothered it. Throughout the beginning of the war and through Suzu's transition into adulthood, she still tries to grasp a sense of childhood innocence and beauty; she doesn't want to grow up. So while the beginning of the movie had an entire scene based on her painting, there is a scene where canons are shooting out at the planes, and Suzu's mind depicts the blasts as splatters of watercolor on a canvas, turning the treacheries and dangers of war into something innocent and beautiful.

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Here is the scene! I found it on Youtube and it's very spicy! Here is what I interpret to be the midway point between fully accepting the reality of her situation and being somewhat emotionally oblivious to it? If that makes sense? Like yes she's aware that she's in the war (obviously) but it's hard to explain what I mean by "oblivious"... I think there is a CLEAR DISTINCTION between "oblivious" and "unaware," and I definitely think she is aware.

The trauma of the war is perhaps putting Suzu in a weird state of denial where the true impacts of the war haven't fully hit her yet, I think.

There was also a part where she goes home to Hiroshima to visit her family, but things obviously aren't the same. Her brother is presumed dead, her sisters and her parents have to go to work and the community center, etc. And I think this part is significant because the first night she was home, she wakes up from a nap and says something along the lines of "I dreamt I married a man and moved to Kure," and I think that's sort of hinting at her subconscious psychology: she is in a weird sort of in denial about how quickly she is growing up. Then, the next day, when everyone leaves the house to go about their day, Suzu is left alone. I think this cements the idea in her head that things just aren't the same anymore.

And on her later trip to Hiroshima, she learns that her parents are dead and she doesn't seem phased by it whatsoever; I think this is a trauma response or some form of denial.

(Sorry for the low quality image! I couldn't find any other pics!)

Okay so these are herons, I think. REGARDLESS of what they are, they are very important symbolically in the movie. While also being in several scenes during Suzu's childhood, there is also one on the front cover of the anime poster. These herons are most prevalent in Suzu's childhood, and I think that they are symbolic OF her childhood and the innocence that comes along with it.

There is one scene later in the movie where Suzu breaks down, and she runs after a heron that somehow made its way over near her house. Despite the fact that there is an air raid going on, she chases the heron away, shouting something to the extent of: "You shouldn't be here! Fly back over the mountain to Hiroshima! You'll be safe there!" And this line in particular, in my opinion, seems to be Suzu projecting her own feelings onto the bird. Since she comes from Hiroshima, she seems to be depicting the place of her childhood as a safe haven and Kure as a place of danger. (Both literally because of the war and symbolically because of her desire to return to her childhood).

And then there is the scene that RIPPED MY HEART OUT.

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I literally cry every single time.

But symbolically, Harumi's death and the fact that Suzu loses her right hand are SO IMPORTANT. This is the moment in the movie where Suzu can no longer ignore the weight of the world and escape into her artistic fantasies. The war is REAL. And though it has always been real, I think it's really HITTING her now. And there's a difference between seeing horrible things happen around you and experiencing those things for yourself. It doesn't feel real until it happens to you, and then you finally understand the impact of everything at once. I think so, anyway. For example, many people think "that will never happen to me" until it does, and it changes your entire life.

But the fact that Suzu lost her RIGHT hand is a core representation of the simple fact that she can never draw again. (Unless she learns how to use her left hand but that remains to be seen). Symbolically, she lost the right hand that drew those beautiful escapes, the right hand that held Harumi's within her own, the right hand that copied the pattern of Keiko's kimono (I'm half quoting the video here because it literally spells it out); and the dream-like state that Suzu is in moments before waking up are very sketchy and incomplete, almost like stick figures-- it's the complete opposite of every other visualization of Suzu's art we've seen thus far.

She reminisces on watermelon and mint candy, things from her childhood, as these stick figure-like depictions of her and Harumi appear on screen briefly. I think they are so "poorly" drawn because that sense of innocence is dying.

And then, when Japan loses the war, Suzu is livid. She has a full breakdown over what everyone's sacrifices were for if Japan was destined to lose the war regardless. "There are still five of us standing right here!" She sobs into the ground, completely defeated and at maybe even at her lowest point. She has finally, fully accepted that her daydreaming days of being oblivious are over, and that she can never return to that sense of childlike innocence.

And then, Suzu rebuilds herself, wishing to remain kind. I literally love her so much she's so great. And her and Shusaku adopt a kid and it's so cute EVEN THOUGH the part with the kid and her mom is lowkey terrifying and I was not expecting that level of gore to come out of nowhere but it's fine. Also Shuzaku and Suzu are cute together, say what you will.

Anyways, In This Corner of the World is definitely a comfort movie for me. I don't know if anyone has come this far, or if anyone even cares enough to read this much about a silly little film, but it's SO IMPORTANT TO ME and I think everyone should watch it! Even if all of this was spoilers!!!!!

#in this corner of the world #anime #movie theory #movie analysis #suzu urano #I will defend this movie with my life #symbolism #please watch it #i spoiled the whole thing but it's fine #Youtube

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