The Boy and the Heron (2023), Hayao Miyazaki’s first film in a decade, is all about history. First off, it has been busy making it; it is the first ever hand-drawn and non-English-language animated film to win the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. In being nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar, Miyazaki is now the joint-most-nominated director ever in that category (tied with Pixar’s Pete Docter). In Japan, The Boy and the Heron managed to overtake Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) as Studio Ghibli’s biggest ever weekend debut, and also went to the top of the US and Canadian box offices—a first for a Miyazaki movie, and in spite of a famously muted promotional campaign.
History is more than just the spoils of the film’s success. It is also its entire being. Miyazaki has blended the emotional and cultural core of the past, present, and future into this fantastical, semi-autobiographical tale of a young boy struggling with the loss of his mother. What follows is a story of magic, absurdity, and terror in equal measure, where the cute and the cut-throat co-exist without a second thought; it dares to ask the question of whether we can live in a world without evil or pain.
Lacing sentiments of Japanese history and culture throughout his films is nothing new. Miyazaki has been doing this for years. Environmentalism, Shinto, and kami spirits fuel the core of My Neighbour Totoro (1988) and Princess Mononoke (1997), as does a general longing for a return to rural living in what has become a sensationally urbanised country. Spirited Away (2001) contains a plethora of references and behaviours attributed to traditional Japanese culture, seen as a form of reassurance in the face of economic anxiety and globalisation. This list of (admittedly oversimplified) examples could go on.
But The Boy and the Heron is distinctive. It does more than represent, reimagine, and explore the tributaries of Japanese history. Now, Miyazaki is placing himself within that history. For the first time, he is using film to acknowledge his place within the culture that he has for so long brought to life with scarcely believable beauty.
It’s more than just being based around Miyazaki’s own childhood. Iconography of his and Ghibli’s previous work proliferate The Boy and the Heron like dust bunnies in an abandoned house. The adorable warawara are visually comparable to the kodama in Princess Mononoke. The idea of being transported to an otherworldly plane-of-being has been visited in Spirited Away. The younger Kiriko that Mahito meets in the oceanic world has the same ferocious independence and drive of the artist Ursula in Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989). Lastly, the horrific firebombing of Tokyo in the film’s prologue directly evokes the devastating Grave of the Fireflies (1988), albeit here it is captured with a disorientation and panic which proves what untapped wonders 2D animation still has to offer. Hints and clues to previous works are there begging to be observed.
This is not however a skin deep tour down memory lane. The Boy and the Heron is a unique Ghibli entry in that Miyazaki’s own history is subjected to just as much introspection as that of Japan’s. This is, however stylised and removed, essentially a story of his life intertwined with his established themes and subject matters. He now gets to engage in this world building as both a character and a filmmaker. He is now part of these worlds which he chooses to bring to life in such a vivid, wondrous manner. In placing himself within the story like this, Miyazaki becomes inextricable from the Japan which he brings to life through cinema. He is as much a part of it, and a source of at least some of its cultural output, as anything or anyone else.
It is not just through Mahito, however, that Miyazaki grounds himself within the story. The granduncle also plays a considerable role. Officially, the granduncle is a tip of the hat to Isao Takahata, another of Studio Ghibli’s co-founders and director of Grave of the Fireflies. But it is just as easy to see him as Miyazaki himself, in the present day as opposed to as a child. When Mahito finally discovers him, the granduncle is more than willing to pass on the role of world-guardian to his distant relative, imploring him to take building-blocks free of malice to begin making a better world. Mahito refuses, stating that he is a being of malice and must instead focus on loving those around him.
Placing this extent of trust in a child is signature Miyazaki; the vast majority of his films feature young protagonists embarking on incredible journeys as part of a coming-of-age story, often furthering Miyazaki’s repeated messages of independence, passion, and maturity (particularly with regards to female characters). In The Boy and the Heron, it again takes on a more personal element. It is as if Miyazaki, sharing the granduncle’s faith in the next generation and a painful awareness of the blood soaked into Japan’s history, is speaking to his younger self. In turn, Mahito stands in for the optimism and happiness which they—and Japan—deserve in the future. Miyazaki is passing on the mantle to the generation who will inherit his legacy.
Bearing all of this in mind, it is little wonder that various reviews have referred to The Boy and the Heron as “a victory lap” and “Miyazaki’s final word” among other things. This is not however a self-indulgent flex of creative prowess. It is yet another masterful example of how Miyazaki blends the personal and the cultural together, albeit this time it is he who at once walks through this rich tapestry and forever hallmarks his place on it. The Boy and the Heron is Miyazaki writing his own place in the same history and culture as illuminated for audiences around the world by his awe-inspiring work; a swansong worthy of one of the greatest storytellers the world has ever known.
Words by James Hanton
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