‘Suzume no Tojimari’ (すずめの戸締まり) is one of the most awaited movies for 2022 for anime lovers. The film will have its release in Japan in November, with no set dates for an international release yet. However, most of the hype about the film is definitely due to the name of its director, Makoto Shinkai, the same director responsible for films like ‘Your Name’, ‘The Garden of Words’, ‘5 Centimeters Per Second’, and, more recently, ‘Weathering with You’. All these films are very well rated by both the general public and the critics, which inevitably raises expectations for Suzume no Tojimari to high levels even without much information about the plot. It's not possible to know whether the movie will live up to expectations or not, but considering Shinkai's history, the chance that something good is about to come is considerably high.

At the moment, two teaser trailers have been released, but neither of them is enough to make any very specific conclusions about the plot. What is known is that the film will have as its protagonist a 17-year-old girl named Suzume who lives in a small town and at some point meets a man who asks her: “is there a door nearby here?”. So she comes across the existence of a magical door that stands in the middle of an abandoned building. The door seems to be a way to unlock some sort of magic or chaos into the world, as more doors start to appear all over Japan.

While the work is not a direct continuation of any film previously produced by the director, one cannot rule out the possibility of a connection between films in the same universe, as done with the appearance of Mitsuha and Taki in Weathering with You and with the appearance of Yukino in your name.

If you look at Shinkai's past romances, there is something that can be perceived as a pattern, as they all deal, in different ways, with a common theme: distance. From 5 Centimeters per Second to Weathering With You, distance has been treated as an obstacle to something related to the plot. In The Garden of Words, 5 Centimeters per Second, and Weathering With You, distance is taken on a physical dimension, while in Your Name this distance expands from the purely physical scope and also enters a temporal scope, showing that “distance” here is not necessarily meant to have a space connotation, but it can have a connotation related to some sort of magical and supernatural aspect of the film itself. While it's difficult to say anything about the new film at the moment, it wouldn't surprise anyone if this topic were addressed again, even though that's still not certain.

There is another theme that is very likely to be dealt with in Suzume no Tojimari: memory and trauma. In the last trailer released, several references to forgetfulness (individual or collective) were given. As in the line “people have forgotten the open gates”, or in “there’s no way I can forget”.

Finally, the theme o the pandemic could be metaphorically portrayed in the film. After all, the film was produced during the covid-19 pandemic, which profoundly affected people worldwide, especially in themes related to memory, death, and trauma. Actually, this part is not pure speculation, it’s something that he already revealed in an interview with TV Asahi. Part of what he said can be read here:

It's a story where something important happens that power itself can't do anything to affect. In making this movie, I want a part of people to think, 'Somehow, we're going to survive, right?'. The coronavirus is a disaster on a big scale, but over the decades of our lives, we're going to experience many forms of disaster, I think. Many things in society will come to a dramatic end or be changed drastically, but even after that, people will continue to find a way to survive.

In a changed world, people are able to find some joy in their lives. Right now, I want to make a movie that shows what happens after the apocalypse. Something will end. It's not a movie where there's something that has to be controlled. In the midst of a changed world, what kind of adventures will unfold? How will people get in touch with their feelings? How will people live with and overcome the shock of change? I want to make a movie that portrays the things we have to face after the end of the world. — Makoto Shinkai, with TV Asahi