The Boy and the Heron

I'm a huge fan of Ghibli (I even have a Princess Mononoke tattoo to show).

I have to say, this movie left me wanting more.

The beginning of the movie feels slower (and mostly coherent) but slowly devolves into a beautiful collage of animation and music. Generally, it feels like the movie is formed as a sampler of the rest of Ghibli, pulling ideas and art from other titles like Spirited Away, Howl's, and Mononoke.

By the time the story comes together in a somewhat haphazard manner, you're pretty much at the end of the movie, and the deep ideas that were to be conveyed had no time to develop. There are various decisions made by the protagonists that lack rhyme or reason because everything critical was saved for the end. I imagine if you watch the movie another 2-3 more times you might catch onto what Miyazaki was intending, but it was certainly lost in a singular conventional theatre style viewing.

Is it worth watching simply based on art and music? In my opinion, yes, but if you're expecting a Ghibli level movie, you might be disappointed.

This is one of the good ones. However it reflects as much the passion and skill of Hayao Miyazaki as his old age confusion. His latest "last movie" starts one way and ends (abruptly) another. It has elements from his own life, his previous work and some new ideas, but the gist of the film is reconciling with loss and moving forward, recognizing there isn't much one can do. A very old man mentality in a movie about a child entering a magical world filled with wonder and dream logic.

The animation was so beautiful, the story a bit disjointed, but quite captivating. It was the ending that kind of disappointed. This film has been a long time in the making (in 2019 it was 15% complete, allegedly, with Miyazaki directing a minute of the film a month) and it shows.

The Japanese title is "How do you live?", the same as the Genzaburo Yoshino's instructional coming-of-age novel that Miyazaki's mother gifted him. In the film, the boy finds the book with a message from his dead mother, instructing him to read it, but it never goes anywhere. There are a lot of other hints and symbols that are quite opaque to non-Japanese, so I felt that I've missed chunks of what the movie was supposed to convey.

Perhaps the most interesting quality of the film is how easily it can be interpreted multiple ways, the ambiguity both confusing and thought provoking. As we experience dream and child logic we get a glimpse of the transmuted reality underneath. The grief, the loss, the benevolent yet oppressive culture, the futility and pain of war, the missing and missed parenting and so on.

Bottom line: is it a masterpiece or a slice of Miyazaki, jumbled beyond recognition? Both. I felt it might be a fitting farewell film, but also that I missed so many meanings from it. I liked it.

From Studio Ghibli, The Boy and the Heron is an animated movie about a boy that dramatically lose his mother due the war in Japan, and he and his father have to move to a safer place. When they arrive, they live in a nice and quiet home. In a place, were strange things did happen, and will happen, too. First of all, I have to list up what was good about the film. It was absolutely beautiful animation with great paint, drawing techniques, and amazing colors. They had that mix with painting-like animation, but at the same time, classic Japanese anime. And I really liked that, I think it is a very nice thing, and I can see that this is a technique that Studio Ghibli is using a lot, and they are really doing it well. Very nice music. It was soft, easy and quiet, but at the same time it built up a hidden suspense that was holding. The music was some sort of anxiety mixed with calmness. Very strange. Last thing that was good was the overall atmosphere and the feeling of the movie, at least in the first act. Because then things started to get a little weird. Everything became unknown and messy, the story changed the course multiple times, and I wasn't sure which way the plot was going to go. At the end everything became a little more clear, but still a little weird. When you don't know what is really going on, the action becomes a little nonsense, too. And that was exactly what happened. The action sequences were sometimes fun and entertaining, but I was still questioning: Why are they doing it? Why are they running? What are they running from? What's the point of the story? Good enough that they had a good moral at the end. Very great with a good message about the balance of the world, and that the soul value is very important. After all, this was a movie on the middle. Great music and animation. Fine atmosphere in the first act. But it got a little messy, and the story changed course to many times. They rushed a lot and I didn't get time to think. Studio Ghibli could have definitely done better.

If you have never watched a Hayao Miyazaki film, I wouldn't recommend starting with The Boy and the Heron.

For an introduction I'd recommend to start with Spirited Away (2001) and Princess Mononoke (1997).

If you become amused and the films resonate with you. Then you will enjoy The Boy and Heron. It isn't the strongest of Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli films but a very good addition to their filmography.

The film begins with a slow pace of mostly visually defining the world, characters and their dilemmas. As the movie progresses you see touches of another realm. Before you know it, it becomes a full-blown feverish dream of Hayao Miyazaki imagination and story telling. It eventually comes all together back on its feet at the end.

Was it fun and visually pleasing? Yes.

Was I confused at times And had a lot of unanswered question? Also yes.

Seeing The Boy and The Heron, Hayao Miyazaki's latest movie feels almost like a monumental event in and of itself. It was announced almost as a surprise with the words "Hayao Miyazaki's last movie". With this amount of hype, including the amazing reviews it's got from critics, my hype was built up to the max. The end result? Not what I expected, and that's ok!

Let's get to the positives, the animation is STUNNING. The way Hayao Miyazaki manages to build these worlds and characters is just an amazing feat, they all come alive with the colours and the movement. Another positive is the tone of the movie, I really hate Disney for trying to market this as a kid's movie, when it's not. It's got some unnerving and scary moments and themes that are not suited for kids, which is good. Hayao Miyazaki is at his best when he manages to blend the adult with the fantastical.

The actors are always amazing, I saw the Japanese dub so I don't know how the western VAs are doing but wow; they all do a fantastic job!

Now to the negatives... a huge thing about Studio Ghibli movies in general, especially the ones from Hayao Miyazaki, is that they're always by rule driven by the characters, it's their journey that's in the front. World building and narrative always takes a second place in his movies to be able to not distract from the characters journeys, big examples of this are Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle where the world building is built by very simple and effective means and rules. But here in the Boy and The Heron the world building is so convoluted and confusing it almost feels like he wanted it to take center stage in this movie and it's such a shame because it feels at like it's at odds with it's own main character who supposedly undergoes a deep deep emotional journey but it all finishes off in a very abrupt and unfitting send-off in the end which really confused me and just didn't feel like a good payoff.

Also the way this movie introduces characters left and right with no rhyme or reason is super confusing. Once again, Hayao Miyazaki did this very minimally in his past movies where the characters get room to be explored and to leave an impact in the story but here once again it's at odds with its own world building- it all feels very haphazard and messy. The Heron is a fun character but I don't feel like he or Mahito do or learn anything from these adventures.

Now, it may sound like I hated this movie, but I didn't. It's just that I care so much about Hayao Miyazaki movies and Studio Ghibli movies that I can't help to compare them to the movies we've seen before. And despite it not being Hayao Miyazaki's best it's still pretty good, it's very much worth a watch.