When I heard about the new Ghibli movie, I consciously lowered my expectations given a few mixed reviews. However, I ended up leaving the theatre in awe of Miyazaki's last masterpiece. It's easy to join the bandwagon of those few shouting that the aged filmmaker's best days are over and that he should have retired before making "The Boy and the Heron". I am very glad he did no such thing, and I'm going to go out on a limb in adding two claims: Those who call this story a jumbled mess do so because they haven't, for the time being, understood what they are looking at, just as I didn't quite understand what was really going on in "Spirited Away" when I first watched it. I still remember being almost angry at the seeming randomness of the proceedings back then. I also believe that many of the viewers who felt confused after watching this last Ghibli installment for the first time will come to love it in the future and rank it among Miyazaki's best. This is a precise psychological fairytale following the logic of fairytales and of dreams. Like in a Franz Kafka novel, the hero is suddenly thrown into an unknown world with a set of intricate rules that he doesn't understand. This strikes us at a very deep level because it's the way we've all experienced our world at that early point in our lives when we were new to it. Like it was for us as infants, several helpers are there to guide the protagonist through the maze of this strange universe, among which the old women in the house who act as protective and nurturing spirits the way grandmothers often do.
Like in "Spirited Away", the hero is an adolescent having to face traumatic changes in his life and having to work hard to overcome increasingly higher obstacles, cope with all those changes, and come of age. In the first act of "The Boy and the Heron", the most traumatic change is the loss of the protagonist's mother rapidly followed by the task of accepting her younger sister as replacement. The second act leads the hero down a rabbit hole and into a dreamlike realm where different species of birds are in charge. Mahito ventures into this underworld, not unlike Orpheus in the Greek myth, trying to find and retrieve his dead mother, only to learn that his attempt must remain futile. His real task, as it turns out, is to mature and reach a higher stage in order to deal with the realities that wait for him when he returns to the world he actually inhabits.
Like many Japanese, the protagonist, who's clearly a representative of the ruling class, suffers a double trauma in the war not only losing a relative but also the country he knew. Once again, Miyazaki confronts his childhood trauma of growing up in a Japan destroyed and deeply changed by WWII. During his journey, Mahito encounters several incarnations of the older Japanese generation, such as the Heron itself, which at first resembles a proud Japanese fighter pilot attacking from the sun, only to be later revealed as an old and broken man not unlike those returning from a lost war. Another representative of this older Japanese generation is the great-uncle Mahito meets towards the end of the film. The rules that this generation has set up for Japan don't apply anymore in the new world that follows the Great War. Mahito and the younger generation will have to make up their own rules trying to restore harmony and balance to their country while still relying on the same elementary building blocks for its survival and character. Encountering a younger incarnation of his mother, Mahito himself turns into a little child again, if only for a moment, being fed an enormous breakfast. However, it is at this precise moment that Mahito has to leave his childhood behind for good. Like for many children confronted with a surrogate parent, Mahito's first instinct is to assume that his stepmother must hate him and that he hates her as well. The heroic deed in front of him is not to retrieve his dead mother but to find a way to his new mother. When he discovers his love for her, he also discovers a new love for life.
At the end of the story, Mahito has grown up, and the war is over. The invading army of elephant-devouring parakeets is suddenly transformed into a flock of pleasant new companions. A new life can begin for those whose old life was destroyed by the most devastating military confrontation in history.
"The Boy and the Heron" made me laugh and it made me cry as it poses the all-important question to the viewer expressed by the original Japanese title: Kimitachi wa Do Ikiru ka - "How Do You Live?" The characters and visuals are absolutely stunning, and I recommend catching it while it still plays on the big screen.
Hayo Miyazaki has the astounding power to create the caliber of fairytales that usually only dozens of generations of folkloric tradition can produce. The process often seems to be a painful one for him but I am deeply grateful that he was willing to endure it over and over while creating films that have the power to enrich our lives. Whether this will be his farewell and last masterpiece or not: Arigato gozaimasu, Miyazaki-Sama, for helping us remember the dreams that we had when we were new to this world. Closing with another admittedly bold claim, I would say that Hayao Miyazaki could be the single most important factor uniting East and West in search of a more poetic and peaceful life. In Japan, they might incorporate him one day into the list of Living Human Treasures. I call him a treasure of the world.
Like in "Spirited Away", the hero is an adolescent having to face traumatic changes in his life and having to work hard to overcome increasingly higher obstacles, cope with all those changes, and come of age. In the first act of "The Boy and the Heron", the most traumatic change is the loss of the protagonist's mother rapidly followed by the task of accepting her younger sister as replacement. The second act leads the hero down a rabbit hole and into a dreamlike realm where different species of birds are in charge. Mahito ventures into this underworld, not unlike Orpheus in the Greek myth, trying to find and retrieve his dead mother, only to learn that his attempt must remain futile. His real task, as it turns out, is to mature and reach a higher stage in order to deal with the realities that wait for him when he returns to the world he actually inhabits.
Like many Japanese, the protagonist, who's clearly a representative of the ruling class, suffers a double trauma in the war not only losing a relative but also the country he knew. Once again, Miyazaki confronts his childhood trauma of growing up in a Japan destroyed and deeply changed by WWII. During his journey, Mahito encounters several incarnations of the older Japanese generation, such as the Heron itself, which at first resembles a proud Japanese fighter pilot attacking from the sun, only to be later revealed as an old and broken man not unlike those returning from a lost war. Another representative of this older Japanese generation is the great-uncle Mahito meets towards the end of the film. The rules that this generation has set up for Japan don't apply anymore in the new world that follows the Great War. Mahito and the younger generation will have to make up their own rules trying to restore harmony and balance to their country while still relying on the same elementary building blocks for its survival and character. Encountering a younger incarnation of his mother, Mahito himself turns into a little child again, if only for a moment, being fed an enormous breakfast. However, it is at this precise moment that Mahito has to leave his childhood behind for good. Like for many children confronted with a surrogate parent, Mahito's first instinct is to assume that his stepmother must hate him and that he hates her as well. The heroic deed in front of him is not to retrieve his dead mother but to find a way to his new mother. When he discovers his love for her, he also discovers a new love for life.
At the end of the story, Mahito has grown up, and the war is over. The invading army of elephant-devouring parakeets is suddenly transformed into a flock of pleasant new companions. A new life can begin for those whose old life was destroyed by the most devastating military confrontation in history.
"The Boy and the Heron" made me laugh and it made me cry as it poses the all-important question to the viewer expressed by the original Japanese title: Kimitachi wa Do Ikiru ka - "How Do You Live?" The characters and visuals are absolutely stunning, and I recommend catching it while it still plays on the big screen.
Hayo Miyazaki has the astounding power to create the caliber of fairytales that usually only dozens of generations of folkloric tradition can produce. The process often seems to be a painful one for him but I am deeply grateful that he was willing to endure it over and over while creating films that have the power to enrich our lives. Whether this will be his farewell and last masterpiece or not: Arigato gozaimasu, Miyazaki-Sama, for helping us remember the dreams that we had when we were new to this world. Closing with another admittedly bold claim, I would say that Hayao Miyazaki could be the single most important factor uniting East and West in search of a more poetic and peaceful life. In Japan, they might incorporate him one day into the list of Living Human Treasures. I call him a treasure of the world.
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