Movie: The Boy and the Heron (Japanese with English subtitles)
Cast (voices): Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Aimyon, Yoshino Kimura, Takuya Kimura, ShÅhei Hino, Ko Shibasaki, Kaoru Kobayashi, Juin Kunimura
Screenwriter/Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Rating: 3.5/5
Duration: 124 minutes
Japanese master animator Hayao Miyazaki(Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke), The Boy and the Heron, is another great work that is both visually stunning and emotionally resonant. Among the greatest living artists, director Hayao Miyazaki already has an impeccable legacy that the world appreciates. The Boy and the Heron marks Miyazaki’s return after a ten-year hiatus, apparently to make a film for his grandchildren to remember. The story, which appears to have autobiographical components, is too deep for the usual target groups of animated films. . The complicated narrative seamlessly delves into childhood issues related to the loss of a parent, other family ties, and adjusting to significant displacement.
Set during World War II, we see in the first minutes a fire engulfs the hospital where Mahito’s mother works as a nurse. We then see young Mahito running through the Tokyo streets, ignoring his father’s words, hoping to get to the hospital in time to save his mother. But it’s too late. Mahito, from then on, has to deal with his father’s marriage to his mother’s sister, Natsuko, and his subsequent move to his country estate. Out there, Mahito is interrupted by a gray heron that keeps stinging him incessantly. The heron talks to young Mahito and tells him that he knows that his mother is still alive. He follows the bird into the forest and discovers a sealed, abandoned tower. Then one fine day, Natsuko disappears. Mahito suspects that the heron is aware of her disappearance. He decides to enter the forbidden tower to search for answers.
It is not a simple narrative. The fantasy elements in the narrative are typical of a Miyazaki film. When Mahito enters the tower, he finds himself in an alternate universe that is both extraordinary and strange. Bubble-like spirits, Warawara, that turn into newborn souls, giant parakeets that are enemies of humans, and many other strange discoveries come your way. This imaginative story about acceptance, redemption, and healing has Miyazaki’s signature elements: magic, folklore, stoic characters, spirits and guides, flying elements, and characters running through claustrophobia-inducing spaces. This eye-opening film about human copability may not be as epic as his previous works, but it still manages to fascinate and entertain. To the public, the alternate world may seem a little confusing, but to the curious Mahito it is a magical and fascinating place to get lost in.
Mahito’s journey exemplifies the experience of loneliness and pain through strong symbolism and abstract ideas. The lesson here is that no matter how much pain you are going through or how lost you feel, there is always a family that helps us accept it all and make us stronger. It is these bonds that make us stronger and help us achieve our potential as human beings.
Miyazaki’s film foreshadows the resilience of children and how, despite great difficulties, Mahito learns to cope with anguish that even mature adults find difficult to handle. Mahito may not be developmentally ready, but his imagination allows him the lightness to think of scenarios to help him adjust to great loss and displacement as he experiences the stages of grief. The creatures we see represent the difficulties he experiences in expressing his emotions. With The Boy and the Heron, Miyazaki basically pays a moving tribute to a child’s ability to come up with coping mechanisms that help him spiritually and emotionally during grief. This is an unusual and profound adventure that is both fascinating and informative.