How Do We Live?
Never would I have imagined back when I reviewed When Marnie Was There in 2014 that, in the current year of 2024, I would be reviewing yet another Studio Ghibli film directed once again by one of its renowned leaders and figure-heads in the form of Hayao Miyazaki. Indeed, Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s aforementioned animated feature at the time of its release was seen by critics and avid Ghibli viewers alike as a film that rather marked the said studio’s faltering dominancy in the film-making department since both Miyazaki and Isao Takahata – who both found Ghibli initially in the year of 1989 – had stated their intentions of no longer being film-makers and even director Yonebayashi had designs of his own in creating an offspring animation studio (Studio Ponoc) that would faithfully carry-on the hand-drawn fantasy whimsy that audiences that have come to know and love of Ghibli. It’s from the release of When Marnie Was There which marked the end of Studio Ghibli solely making grandiose animation films on their own behalf and would rely on other means to market their good name. Along the way, their have been co-productions that producer Toshio Suzuki has managed to develop to pave the way forward for Ghibli. However, it wasn’t until when murmurs and stories were being reported around the unfortunate demise of Takahata of Miyazaki announcing his film-making return, once again, to develop a film that would not only be a close and personal affiliation with Miyazaki’s own relationships with others, but a reminder and message to his younger relations on the significance of resilience in the face of great loss. This has now come to fruition eight years later, since Miyzaki’s proposition of the project to Suzuki, in the form of The Boy and the Heron; an animated feature riddled with abundant detail and deep meaning that envelops a natural introspection from mature audiences…
After tragically losing his mother during the war, young Mahito moves to his family’s estate in the countryside. Once there, a series of mysterious events lead him to a secluded and ancient tower, home to a mischievous grey heron. When Mahito’s new stepmother disappears, he follows the grey heron into the tower, and enters a fantastical world shared by the living and the dead. As he embarks on an epic journey with the heron as his guide to rescue his new stepmother, Mahito must uncover the secrets of this world, and the truth about himself…
With a title such as The Boy and the Heron, its fair to suggest that audience members would inherently expect to witness a fantastical story of fancifulness between a young, innocent protagonist that is trying to make the best sense of his playful predicament through a heron that jibes and quips along the way. While this aforesaid prospect isn’t necessarily far from the truth, with the mentioned film wholeheartedly delivering virtuoso moments of splendour and and subtle scenarios of animation delicacy that are incredibly breathless and bewildering to take note of, the main principle to take away from The Boy and the Heron is how discernible the darker more personal undertones seamlessly weave through its fantastical façade and how Miyazaki transparently draws from past characters and motifs from his previous films; embedding them in a narrative that can seem complex for younger viewers especially. From the unborn souls – named the warawara – that fly into the sky to be born, which are reminiscent of the Kodoma in Miyzaki’s previous work of Princess Mononoke, to the manner in which the protagonist of Mahito seamlessly finds himself in a dream world looking for his stepmother (similar to that of Chihiro who ventures into the spirit world in Spirited Away looking for her parents), it’s clear to connote Miyzaki’s clear intentions of including familiar cinematic tendencies that creates a film, if you like, that can be seen as an amalgamation piece; a celebratory but personal affiliation that let’s general audiences perceive Miyazaki for who he truly is. Aside this contextual point of view however, one of the more clearer themes and motifs that I certainly took away from viewing The Boy and the Heron was the manner in which it handles this clear idea of grief and the different stages we envelop when we have lost something or someone dear to us. Indeed, on the face of it, the film meticulously blends wartime tragedy and supernatural exploration through the gaze of Mahito. However, what I believe binds these two said narrative archetypes is this very idea of grief. The film doesn’t shy away from this in the early stages where we see a young and frantic Mahito hurdling his way through a dark, hazy and fire-struck Japanese setting hurrying to try and save his mother from a blaze. It’s from this catalyst where we get to see the different stages of grief play-out through an aguish-stricken Mahito who, after the initial and unfortunate incident, doesn’t show much emotion in meeting new faces and later stumbles upon a book, titled ‘How do you Live’ (which happens to be the Japanese film title and name of the book that this film was inspired by), that evokes much emotion from Mahito where he reads a heartfelt message from his mother. This, of course, leads him down the rabbit hole (or mystic tower in this case which has thematic shades of Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth) where the grey heron presents Mahito with a proposition of reuniting with his mother. This inevitable dreamscape lays before us a journey for Mahito in which he learns many things; grappling with inner conflicts and insecurities and overcoming personal challenges through resilience and introspection. It’s through these many different challenges and encounters that Mahito stumbles upon which can make audience members reflect upon their own personal and riveting endeavours. Indeed, if there’s one fundamental yet irreverent aspect that Miyazaki likes to wholeheartedly flourish throughout the majesty of his stories and his films, it’s this idea of his characters overcoming whatever it is that they’re facing emotionally or physically; whether this hallmarks back to Chihiro maturing and resisting the many challenges she faces in rescuing her parents in Spirited Away or Sophie accepting her own love for Howl and prevailing the curse that has been put on her. Mahito is exactly the same as past Miyazaki protagonists and is ultimately faced with a compromise that he’s satisfied with to move on with his own life. Yes, with the amount of dark undertones and grief and death there is, The Boy and the Heron provides an ultimatum and uplifting message to its devotees that no matter what bad things may happen to affect your physical or emotional state, we always have the power to choose and push through whatever comes our way. This is beautifully signified near towards the end of the film where Mahito happens to meet his granduncle where they discuss this idea of building your own freedom. It’s this continued optimism, seen through all of Miyazaki’s films, that just exemplifies the said directors cinematic significance and imagination.
Where The Wind Rises was curious for largely eschewing Miyazakian mythology in favour of historical drama, The Boy And The Heron complements it as a Greatest Hits set of the director’s distinctive fantasy output. This, too, is set amid the destruction of World War II — in its early scenes, Miyazaki paints the devastation of young Tokyo boy Mahito’s home (and the death of his mother) in an impressionistic flurry of flickering flame, some of the studio’s most striking animation ever which is coupled with the distorted and disfigured faces that eerily remind you of the chaotic figures you would gaze at a Francis Bacon painting. From there, it moves out to the countryside — playing like a dark relative of My Neighbour Totoro — as Mahito is re-homed at his new mother’s rural estate. For its first hour, The Boy And The Heron unfolds at a gentle pace with Mahito coming to terms with his new life — though his quiet pastoral existence is punctuated by outbursts of grief-fuelled anger and the menacing encroachment of the heron, who taunts him with cryptic messages and ominous warnings. As with all of Miyazaki’s work, it’s peppered with beautifully small humanistic moments, incidental actions purposefully animated that make the characters feel truly alive. And even in its quieter half, there is mesmeric imagery: a chorus of carp rising from a lake, mouths agape; the heron’s steely gaze, accompanied by staccato piano notes from Joe Hisaishi’s stunning score; a mass of toads crawling up Mahito’s body.
Where I think The Boy and the Heron slightly stumbles is in its use of space and pacing. Once the baleful heron heron draws Mahito into a perilous fantasy realm bursting with boundless invention – with the said two characters forming an unlikely double-act on an existential quest, the second-half of the said feature can be seen to be wild to say the least. The unbounded fantasies of Miyazaki’s imagination, I feel, work best if they are physically contained in some way – within the bathhouse of Spirited Away, the enchanted forest of Totoro, the castle in Howl’s Moving Castle. Here, the world in which Mahito finds himself is vast and limitless, and the director fills it – with characters, locations and exposition – until the whole film starts can feel a cluttered and confusing to many. For myself, I longed for a moment of stillness, an opportunity such as that offered by the bus-stop scene in Totoro, for contemplation and the chance to fully inhabit the miraculous creations of Miyazaki’s mind, rather than being bombarded by them.
It’s impossible not to view the film as a kaleidoscopic self-portrait. Whilst we’re simply presented with a story of revelation and an uplifting message to coincide with this that has become a beautiful and wholehearted hallmark of an imaginative filmmaker, it’s also a contemplative piece of work of self-discovery where we can’t help but see nods to Ghibli works of yesteryear. The film’s dark and dangerous fantasy impulses hew close to Princess Mononoke; its hallucinatory coming-of-age allegory is in the Spirited Away vein; the breathtakingly adorable warawara are the cutest Ghibli creation since the Ponyo babies; the lushly overgrown kingdom is akin to Laputa; the anthropomorphic parakeets are rich in Totoro design. Yet, for all its clear familiarity, it can’t be helped to say how much The Boy and the Heron moves in ways that can feel unexpected and demands re-watching; similar to that when viewing a Stanley Kubrick feature for the first time. It’s introspection is abundantly clear, this is Miyazaki as lonely boy, and cantankerous heron, and wise old wizard, ruminating on his kingdom of dreams and madness, wary of it toppling or falling into the wrong hands. The message it leaves with us – in reminding us to create a world in which we would want to live in – oddly wants us to clasp and grasp at what Studio Ghibli have kindly provided since their existence. In many respects, despite pacing issues, we’re lucky to have a film such as this one…
On that note, it’s time for me to end this week’s anime review. As always everyone, thank you for reading my latest film review of The Boy and the Heron and I hope you’ve all enjoyed the read! If anyone has an opinion on either my review or the film itself, you’re more than welcome to share your thoughts down below. Thank you once again for reading my latest Blog Post and I hope you all have a nice weekend! Adieu!
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ – Alex Rabbitte