Suzume

The main heroine is a 17-year-old schoolgirl who discovers her ability to pass through a special portal into a parallel reality from which huge red worms enter our world, causing earthquakes and other catastrophes. As the characters search for and close the doors to the otherworldly realm, they travel throughout Japan, with the action beginning in Miyazaki Prefecture on Kyushu Island and ending in the Tohoku region, which was affected by a devastating earthquake in 2011.

This movement allows the director to fill the film with intricately detailed landscapes of cosmic beauty. The turbulent emotions of the teenage girl rhyme with the earth's tremors; peace in the film becomes possible only after the symbolic reconciliation of the orphan Suzume with the loss of her mother that happened many years ago. In fact, the essence of the film is precisely formulated in one of the dialogues by the heroine's lover: "The weight of human emotions overwhelms the earth."