By Owen Glancy
Asst. Arts & Features Editor
Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli are famous for their dedication to quality and whimsy in their films. Movies like “Spirited Away,” “Princess Mononoke,” and “My Neighbor Totoro” are some of the greatest films not just in their genres but of all time.
Miyazaki’s previous film, “The Wind Rises,” was believed by both the world and the creator himself to be his very last work. However, Miyazaki is back with another film known in Japan as “How Do You Live” and in America as “The Boy and the Heron.”
This is the best Ghibli film since “Spirited Away,” although it initially doesn’t seem that way. The start of this film is very slow, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is unusual for a Ghibli movie to start this slowly.
However, this is also the perfect way to start this film. Even more so than his other works, “The Boy and the Heron” is a deeply introspective film. There are so many layers to unravel here and they all show up in the first 40 minutes of the film.
By taking the time to establish these characters, their circumstances, and their motivations, it makes that first step into the unknown that much more exciting.
The supernatural world presented by this film is unlike any other in Miyazaki’s career in that it feels far more ominous. This tower is strange and clearly has some sort of connection to the afterlife, and everything in its presentation sells this.
Joe Hisaishi’s masterful score combined with Ghibli’s signature animation style makes this world seem so mysterious and whimsical, while also conveying a sense of dread as the film’s story goes to darker and darker places.
Mahito Maki, the film’s protagonist, is a young boy whose mother was killed in WWII. Shortly after, his father marries his aunt and they all move into her giant estate in the country. Before anything supernatural even happens, we’re already sucked into Mahito’s world.
Losing a loved one is hard, especially if it’s your mother, and seeing his father kiss his deceased wife’s sister while moving into her mansion only makes this situation even more difficult for Mahito to comprehend.
Then the Heron comes in.
Everything this character says and does just makes me laugh. Whether it's the excellent vocal performances in both Japanese and English, or just the way he’s animated, he is absurdly entertaining throughout.
The English dub is surprisingly great, featuring big name Hollywood actors like Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe, Christian Bale, and Mark Hamill. They all give top-tier performances that, while not surpassing the original Japanese voices, are just as good as them.
But it’s sort of a given that a Studio Ghibli film is gonna look and sound great. It’s the story that really differentiates a good Ghibli film from a great one, and from that point of view, this is one of the studio’s all-time best.
Mahito and the Heron’s journey through the magical world of the seemingly never-ending tower is as wondrous as it is heartbreaking. Mahito starts as this idealistic child - he’s very ignorant of the world and assumes that he can fix everything if he can find his mother in this tower. However, by the end, he matures and learns his lesson with the help of the Heron and the other characters he meets on his journey.
I desperately want to talk about every single minute detail of this film’s story, but it is one that is best experienced blind. By the end of the film, I was left speechless as the credits rolled. The ending is so powerful and so uplifting that even if there are pockets of the film that feel predictable, it’s worth it to get to that ending.
“The Boy and the Heron” was not at all what I thought it would be, but I loved it anyway. It was a loving reflection directed by a master at the end of his career, looking back on everything that made him so special to so many people. Whether you’ve seen one Ghibli film or all of them, this is absolutely essential viewing.
Rating: A+
The perfect “final” Miyazaki film