The Boy and the Heron

Hayao Miyazaki is arguably one of the world’s greatest filmmakers, and his prolific work within Studio Ghibli has resulted in what many consider some of the greatest animated movies ever conceived. Much like other famous artists, he seems unable to stay away from the paint brush, as despite announcing his retirement multiple times, he has always found an excuse to animate another movie. The latest example of this was with the 2022 film, The Boy and the Heron, which was announced in 2017 and eventually came out after a strenuous period of having to deal with global issues like the COVID-pandemic and the SAG-AFTRA strike. The movie seemed worth the wait, with it earning critical acclaim, a box office of $294.2 million worldwide (making it the fifth highest-grossing Japanese film of all time) as well as the Oscar for Best Animated Feature (the second Ghibli film awarded this honor after Spirited Away in 2002), proving that even at the age of 83, Miyazaki still knows how to light the world on fire.

After losing his mother to a firebombing in Tokyo during the Pacific War, Mahito Maki (voiced by Luca Padovan) leaves the city with his air munitions factory owner father, Shoichi (voiced by Christian Bale) to live on the rural estate of his new wife, Natsuko (voiced by Gemma Chan), the sister of Mahito’s late mother. Not being able to adjust to this new familial status quo, Mahito is drawn to a mysterious grey heron who continues to stalk him around the grounds and eventually speaks to him in a semi-human form (voiced by Robert Pattinson) informing him that his mother is still alive but locked in a dangerous underworld. After a heavily pregnant Natsuko suddenly disappears into the surrounding woods, Mahito goes to find her and winds up travelling to the aforementioned underworld, with the Heron continuingly coaxing him with the possibility of finding his mother while slowly morphing into a more humanoid form. Further descending into this bizarre world where logic has no meaning, Mahito comes across various different creatures and people, all of which in some form or fashion tie back into his family and the problems they’re currently dealing with, which forces him to accept his mother’s death and learn to accept his new mother.

The Boy and the Heron is probably not going to be Miyazaki’s last film (this man is going to work until he physically can’t anymore), but if this were to be his last, it’s at least not a bad one to go out on.

It’s funny how much of an enigma this movie is, especially considering it has many labels attached to it that don’t necessarily reflect the film in question. It was said to be Miyazaki’s last film but it probably won’t be, it shares its name with a 1937 novel written by Genzaburō Yoshino (both are called ’’How Do You Live?’’ in Japan) yet isn’t an adaptation in any way, the film was supposed to come out in 2020 yet failed to reach its deadline due to the slow animation process, and despite being called one of the greatest animated films ever made, the general consensus is not that clean-cut. While it was highly regarded by critics, audiences were a little confused and not entirely satisfied with the end results, believing the film was too ambiguous and didn’t answer any questions which resulted in a confused and unfulfilling experience. Considering the film is said to have been partially inspired by Miyazaki’s childhood, it isn’t any surprise that such an artistic individual with a flair for poignant imagery and timeless messaging would have a semi-autobiography told in such a sporadic, abstract, and interpretative manner. With clear allusions to stories like Alice in Wonderland, Dante’s Inferno and other tales about traversing an unknown location which symbolically represents a person’s own demons, this plot has the workings for something great and climatic for an explorative filmmaker, and there are several moments throughout that display why Miyazaki is such a talented creative. With clear references to his past work through character designs, scene layouts, visual cues and even main premise, this film feels like a final hurrah for all of his films coming together to create a whole that feels like a best-of his usual tropes without being an exact replication of any of them. Choosing to focus on such a real human conflict of struggling to grieve a loved one alongside a perilous journey with humanoid carnivorous talking parakeets and a heron with a human face stored in its gut and beak, just feels like classic Miyazaki as well as classic Ghibli, and contains all the usual tropes that make their features timeless.

The story is simple but features a lot of visual storytelling to elevate its impact, the characters are flawed but also very human (even when they literally aren’t), the visuals and music are outstanding and bring a presence and weight to the story being told, and even when confusing, there’s a lot that can be dissected and discovered about the director by watching it. With that said, the film is definitely up for interpretation, but it leans a little too hard into that element around the midway point, making it hard to fully comprehend what it’s even trying to say (so much so that the film outwardly states the meaning behind everything in the last few minutes almost as an apology for being too vague). The randomness feels a little too out-there, some of the callbacks feel more beneficial to Miyazaki than to the story, and while these elements can be combed over to reveal their true intentions, their base value isn’t enticing enough for casual viewers to dig that deep (it’s great when a story can be more than the sum of its parts, but it isn’t good enough when ”more”  is all that it is).

Characters in a Ghibli film are usually brimming with personality and have a quirkiness that you’d normally attribute to a traditional Japanese feature, but what separates them is the identifiable way they react to realistic situations. Even in spite of what you’d imagine from a filmmaker who’s made incredibly creative and outlandish movies, some of his best films are ones that are more tied to reality or at least tackle real-world problems through the eyes of impressionable youths. Movies like My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Grave of the Fireflies, The Wind Rises and even Spirited Away are very relatable films featuring very genuine-feeling protagonists, and The Boy and the Heron, while not on the same level, follows that trend. Mahito is not a great character and is a little too reserved and underdeveloped to really let the audience grasp everything he’s going through, but the brief bits of dialogue and context clues provided, the very strong facial expressions that show a sense of restricted grief and detachment, and Luca Padovan’s mature but still youthful sounding voice, helps make him a lead worth following. He’s ironically more interesting in the real world trying to grieve his mother than in the fantasy world, as while the pieces are there to make it complex, it feels like it’s piling too much on the plate, and therefore nothing gets fully sampled.

Because of this, the supporting characters don’t have time to develop or become as memorable as past examples, acting more as tools for the plot rather than faces you’d instantly pick out in a crowd. They aren’t bad thankfully, and the characters that are given time, like a young fisherwoman named Kiriko (voiced by Florence Pugh), are pretty good, but they could’ve been made more interesting. A young pyrokinetic girl named Lady Himi (voiced by Karen Fukuhara) is voiced well and has a great concept behind her conception, but doesn’t get enough time to let the audience simmer in what she represents, Christian Bale is fine as Mahito’s father, but his cockney accent does feel out of place in this distinctly Japanese environment, Gemma Chan as Natsuko could’ve been interesting but is mainly just someone needing to be rescued, even the Heron (despite being part of the title) isn’t around enough to form a proper connection with Mahito, although Robert Pattinson is unrecognizable as the voice and his design is wonderfully grotesque. All the voice work is very good and surprise cameos from people like Mark Hamill, Willem Dafoe, and Dave Bautista are nice, but it isn’t one of their strongest casts.

The visuals will make audiences nostalgic for this kind of movie, which are sadly not that frequent anymore. While animation as a medium is constantly evolving and the movies that have explored creative ways to tell and present their stories are always going to be appreciated, it’s tragic how 2D animation has basically become extinct in the eyes of Hollywood, with next to no projects being made that have a meaningful budget backing them. Thankfully, TV and streaming has allowed a few more hand-drawn and 2D projects to stay alive, and foreign markets (especially Japan) continue to release 2D movies at a cinematic level because they seem to respect and appreciate the artform, so seeing a big-budgeted glorious-looking 2D animated movie released on a global scale do well from both a financial and critical viewpoint is very cathartic.

Ghibli have always created amazing-looking features, and this film is no different, being headed by legendary animator, Takeshi Honda, and housing a production budget that was one of the most expensive in Japan’s history, which was provided through the help of frequent Ghibli producer, Toshio Suzuki, who made deals with streaming services like Netflix to show their films on their platform in exchange for funding. Despite the animating process taking several years (it got to the point where they were essentially animating 1 minute per month), it was definitely worth it, with flowing linework, an extremely vibrant color palette, subtly expressive characters with great designs, and a majestic elegance that comes through sprawling backgrounds and giant animation boards. The musical score is also very majestic, with Joe Hisaishi composing a piece that features the typical Ghibli sounds like the swooning horns and strings that invoke a fantastical adventurous spirit, but also a weighty piano melody that brings a melancholic realism to the picture, reminding everyone of the real tragedy that set this magical situation into motion.

The Boy and the Heron will probably not be labelled as Hayao Miyazaki’s last film for long, and while this is a perfectly serviceable film to go out on, it’s probably best he sticks around as he can do better. At 84 years old, he wouldn’t be up to his usual standard, and even though this is still a well-made film with good acting, fantastic visuals and music, and a solid premise, it decides to trade upfront creativity for multilayered ambiguity, which makes things more confusing than satisfying. You will want to know more about what it’s saying, but the way it goes about telling the audience isn’t for casual moviegoers and therefore, might not work for them and only for diehard Ghibli fans (which there are thankfully a lot of to be fair). The Boy and the Heron may not sway you but will at least pique your curiosity.