The Boy and the Heron, 2023.
Written and Directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
Featuring the voice talents of Soma Santoki, Aimyon, Ko Shibasaki, Masaki Suda, Takuya Kimura, Yoshino Kimura, Keiko Takeshita, Jun Fubuki, Sawako Agawa, Karen Takizawa, Shinobu Otake, Jun Kunimura, Kaoru Kobayashi, and Shōhei Hino.
SYNOPSIS:
Through encounters with his friends and uncle, follows a teenage boy’s psychological development. He enters a magical world with a talking grey heron after finding an abandoned tower in his new town.
Whether one is familiar with the life of animation titan Hayao Miyazaki is not necessarily a prerequisite to finding dazzling and profound meaning in The Boy and the Heron, but it sure does add another layer to this already potent, heady story of grief, depression, isolation, friendship, drastically altered family dynamics, and how to move on living life (taken from the Japanese title, How Do You Live?, also the name of Genzaburô Yoshino’s novel from which the film is based on.)
Similarly, one doesn’t need to have much experience with Hayao Miyazaki’s previous landmark efforts (although you would be crazy not to seek out classics such as My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away, among others, if you haven’t seen them), but it is worth noting that this likely swan song is an amalgamation of everything that has come from before, in both the thematic ground covered and adventure. That same signature, oddball imaginative charm is there. The difference is that it comes from a more personal, darker place than usual.
Mahito (voiced by Soma Santoki) and his industrialist father, Shoichi (voiced by Takuya Kimura), have fled the Pacific War following the death of Mom inside a burning hospital. While there are several goofy, elderly maids to look after the teenage boy, his father is distant and work-focused. Life is not going much better at school for Mahito, where, upon being bullied, he picks up a rock and wallops the side of his head, blood streaming down his face (in what feels like one of the more disturbing scenes Miyazaki has put to screen.) Shoichi has also decided to remarry, this time to his dead wife’s younger sister, who is now pregnant; it’s a dynamic that Mahito isn’t sure how to process, unsure about the woman being his mother. The feeling also might be mutual.
A mysterious grey heron also follows and taunts Mahito, eventually luring him into an abandoned tower supposedly built by the boy’s great-uncle. Unsurprisingly, it also turns out that the heron can speak (voiced by Masaki Suda), is apparently a deceptive trickster (upon an injury to the beak, a quirky old man is revealed to be inside), and brings Mahito into a magical fantasy realm where the present interact with the past for thrilling, swashbuckling adventure, majestically odd creatures (such as giant, violent, colorful pelicans), and thoughtful like lessons.
If that sounds like a bit too much crammed into a typical story about entering another vibrant world to process and move on from unspeakable trauma, sometimes it is, even if Hayao Miyazaki and his collaborators craft a compelling journey cut from the cloth of a rare, dying breed of beautiful hand-drawn animation. Late in the film, a character appears to be a stand-in for Hayao Miyazaki in a subplot that lands powerfully while tying other elements together.
Since The Boy and the Heron has so much on its mind and wants to offer a slice of everything Hayao Miyazaki, the cumulative emotional effect is slightly tempered in that scattershot approach (some aspects have a somewhat abrupt conclusion), but this is still a mesmerizing, moving, self-reflexive final feature delicately dealing with heavy subject matter, from an industry giant ready to let someone else take control of the tower.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
