Film Review - The Boy and the Heron (2023)

It’s a privilege to live in a time when we can get a new Hayao Miyazaki film. Despite having retired more times than one would have thought possible, it seems there’s no stopping Miyazaki once his creative juices get flowing. His newest film, coming a decade after his third “retirement” with The Wind Rises not only captures the sheer unfiltered imagination from one of the world’s greatest filmmakers, but it proves just as thematically rich to boot.

Like many of Miyazaki’s other films, The Boy and the Heron deals with themes of mortality, legacy and environmentalism. Based on the 1937 novel How Do You Live, the film readjusts the setting to take place in the waning years of World War Two. After losing his mother in a fire, Mahito Maki relocates to the countryside with his father and new stepmother. While struggling to process his grief, Mahito is pestered by a mysterious grey heron. Mahito swats it away, ignores it and even goes after it, but the heron keeps persisting.

One day, when facing this heron, Mahito comes across a mysterious tower nearby his new home. For a while he forgets about this tower, but Mahito finds himself there once again when his stepmother goes missing. Taunted by this heron, Mahito goes in to find her, ultimately being transported to a magical alternate world in which Mahito must confront the very things that he fears to escape.

This all is very much in character for someone like Miyazaki, but his expertise in the craft comes through gorgeously as always. He has always had a knack for generating atmosphere through the small details he draws into each scene, such as the inclusion of a bottle in the river that the girls play by in My Neighbour Totoro. The Boy and the Heron has a lived in feel that enhances the mood and the emotions that the story evokes, something further emboldened by the predominantly piano based score. The hand drawn visuals, that often make anime such a distinctive medium within animated storytelling, are absolutely euphoric with their lush colours, smooth motions and willingness to embrace as much absurdity as it can.

Weird has always been an apt way of describing Miyazaki’s films, which is what makes them so absorbing. Half the joy of his masterpiece Spirited Away comes from how unashamedly odd it is in its visuals. The Boy and the Heron has similar strangeness regarding the logistics and creatures that inhabit the world that Mahito finds himself in. Not only is time an important factor in this world but the mysterious creatures that Mahito interacts with gives this world a real chaotic sense of personality. Such creatures include an affinity for parakeets and strange inflatable gremlins that look like the Adipose from Doctor Who. The imagination of this film is a splendour to witness and it makes the immersion all the more engrossing as we watch Mahito navigate this world with urgency, even as the beauty of the animation threatens to distract him from his mission.

Underneath the wonder of the presentation are themes that, as mentioned, have been a staple of Miyazaki’s filmography since The Castle of Cagliostro. Environmentalism and the human condition are particularly prominent here, yet there is honing in on grief and the need to accept reality so that you may forge your own path. The antagonist is someone who possesses the level of control over fate that Mahito craves in the aftermath of his mother’s death. But this is a tale that scoffs at the idea of changing the past or even wiping away complete suffering, instead suggesting that life and beauty come from what we make of the lives we have – of how we live you could say. This adds so much weight to the characterisation and animation, creating yet another jaw-droppingly rich story that celebrates humanity at its best – something that Miyazaki has always had a gift for.

With all this said though, this is sadly not Miyazaki’s best film. While it has many of the same admirable qualities as his best films, it suffers from uncharacteristic pacing issues, namely towards the end in which it seems to be sprinting for the finish line. This feels so off brand as Miyazaki’s films often love to float in the moment and bask in the full beauty of its world and characters. The themes and animation are as stunning as ever, but it’s almost as if the film got afraid that it was spending too long in its own company. Had it fully simmered in the thematic power of its resolution then it could’ve had the same swan song effect that The Wind Rises before it has. But it just seems to resolve and then stop rather than conclude, a somewhat underwhelming note to wrap up what had otherwise been a really great film.

This shouldn’t discourage any viewers though for The Boy and the Heron has so much to offer its audiences. A hypnotically picturesque spectacle with humanity ingrained into every frame it is a marvel of animation that will blow away those first being introduced to Miyazaki and will still enchant those who have been following his work for decades. It’s probably naïve to assume this will be Miyazaki’s last, as he is evidently going to keep making films until he physically cannot do so anymore. Whatever the future holds, The Boy and the Heron is another colourful gem to add to the filmography of one of cinema’s greatest contributors.