The Boy and the Heron

The Boy and the Heron is billed as Miyazaki’s final film. If it truly is it’s a great way to go out.

The film is equal parts autobiography and fantasy. A Japanese boy loses his mother during World War 2 in Japan, and moves with his father to a more rural part of the country, to live with his aunt, who is now pregnant with his soon-to-be half-sister (I hope I got that right).

A talking heron torments the boy and the aunt goes missing (did the heron take her away?). The boy wanders to a mysterious abandoned tower and into another world that seems to be a blend of living and dead souls. Is it the afterlife? Another dimension? The heron claims his mother is alive, and she resides within this world.

Some incredible sequences and visually arresting animation ensue, and the fate of several worlds is at stake.

Miyazaki is obviously a master storyteller and in my opinion, this is his best film since Spirited Away. It’s a film about life, loss, and ultimately a meditation on death. Plenty of Hollywood stars voice the characters, including Christian Bale as the boy’s father.

Narratively the final act felt like an exercise in surrealism, and I was okay with that because I was so engrossed in what I was watching.

I’ll never look at a parakeet the same way again after this movie.

9/10