Hayao Miyazaki, generally regarded as our greatest living animated filmmaker on the basis of such classics as My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away (to name just a few), has announced his retirement a number of times over the years but when he did so upon the release of his last film, 2013’s The Wind Rises, there was a sense that he truly meant it. For one thing, he was 72 years old at that point, an age that was hardly conducive to the time and labor-intensive traditional animation approach that he still employed in his films. For another, having proven with The Wind Rises that he could tell a completely realistic story story that was just as stylish and captivating as his grand fantasies, he was an artist who literally had nothing else to prove to anyone. And yet, despite all of that, some creative urge must have gnawed at him after that announcement because, after years of rumors and secrecy, the master has returned with a brand new fantasy feature, The Boy and the Heron, and if it doesn’t quite reach the exalted heights of his finest works, it is nevertheless an alternately stirring and soulful work that will enrapture anyone who sees it.
The Wind Rises, you will recall, told a story that revolved in large part around WWII and indeed, the first section of The Boy and the Heron feels like a continuation of those themes. The boy of the title is Mahito (Santoki Soma), a 12-year-old who is still struggling to process the grief he feels over the loss of his mother, a nurse who was killed in an Allied air raid bombing of the hospital where she worked. As the story proper opens, a little time has passed since that horrifying event and his father, Shoichi (Kimura Takuya), the head of a munitions factory, has married his late wife’s younger sister, Natsuko (Kimura Yoshino) and moved them all from Tokyo to a lavish estate in the countryside owned by her family. The transition is not an easy one for Mahito—his father is always away at his factory, he is picked on at school and, despite her most sincere efforts, is unable to really connect with the now-pregnant Natsuko, especially as a surrogate mother. The only other people around are a gaggle of old women who serve as maids for the estate and who also supply a number of the film’s biggest laughs, especially in the ways that they fawn over the sight over some canned salmon brought in from the city, an invaluable luxury at that time.
Soon, another visitor arrives in the form of a large talking grey heron (Masaki Suda) that swoops in to pester Mahito with the suggestion that his late mother is out there waiting for him to come and rescue her. This leads Mahito to discover a mysterious old tower on the edge of their property that serves as a portal to a strange new world. Here, he picks up a couple of guides, including Himi, a fire maiden who is suggestive of his mother, who show him the lay of the land, from the economic structure to the tiny creatures known as warawara that will one day become people in our world, assuming that they aren’t consumed by a seemingly ever-present flock of hungry pelicans beforehand. There is also danger in the form of an army of giant man-eating parakeets led by a king (Jun Kunimura) who bears a perhaps not-so-coincidental resemblance to Mussolini. It soon becomes apparent that this entire universe is on the verge of collapse and the individual running it all, Mahtio’s great-uncle, believes that Mahito is the one person who can take over for him and bring much-needed balance.
Those with some degree of familiarity with Miyazaki will find that The Boy and the Heron contains any number of connections between it and aspects of both his biography and his creative output. In many ways, this is clearly Miyazaki’s most personal work, one that serves as a sort of grand summation of his various themes and creative approaches. Unlike most animated films, which tend to boil down into easily discernible tales of stalwart heroes overcoming any number of adversities and defeating bad guys, his films tend to focus more on characters whose fantastical journeys lead them to personal reflections and revelations that allow them to move on with their lives. In this case Mahito’s journey through this particular land gives him the chance to ultimately recognize that death is an inevitability that no one, whether they are an ordinary nurse or a world-renowned artist, can ever get around and which is not, despite the feelings that it may inspire in those left behind, the end of the world and it is only with this realization that he is able to move on with his own life. What makes the film—indeed, all of Miyazaki’s creations—work so brilliantly is his ability to take these undeniably heady concepts and use elements of wild fantasy as a vehicle for presenting them in achingly human terms that resonate long after the story has concluded.
While those who have followed Miyazaki’s work over the years will doubtlessly get the most out of The Boy and the Heron, those who are not quite as familiar with his output will still find much to embrace here. The story is a fascinating narrative that combine moments of fantastical whimsy with real-world emotions in ways that are constantly surprising and touching without ever coming across as contrived or overly manipulative. Visually, the film is as gorgeous as anything that Miyazaki has ever done before and contains any number of moments of memorable imagery, from the simultaneously horrifying and lovely early moment in which Mahito’s mother essentially merges with the flames that consume to the good cheer of the charmingly goofy old maids to the endless array of mystical creatures encountered in the other world. There are also strong contributions from composer Joe Hisaishi, a longtime Miyazaki collaborator who contributes yet another wonderfully evocative score, and the entire voice cast, whose committed line readings help to further pull you into the storyline. (In addition to the Japanese-language version, there is also an English-language dub playing in theaters featuring the vocal talents of Robert Pattinson, Christian Bale, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Florence Pugh and Mark Hamill—although I haven’t seen this version, the quality of previous dubs of Miyazaki films and the high caliber of the caster suggests it will be a more than adequate substitute for those who do not want to deal with subtitles.)
Even if The Boy and the Heron may not ultimately rank among Miyazaki’s greatest works, that says more about the astoundingly high quality of his overall filmography than anything else. In the career of practically any other filmmaker, this would be an absolute peak—a gorgeous and contemplative work from a master that works both as an ultimate summation of the ideas that have fascinated and haunted him as an artist over the decades and as a fresh and audacious story in its own right. Like practically anyone else who has encountered his work over the years, there is a part of me that hopes against hope that Miyazaki might be able to pull together one more film out of his still-fertile imagination. However, if this does prove to be his final cinematic statement after all, it serves as a more-than-worthy capper to the career of one of the most significant artists of any stripe of our time.