A new work by the brilliant animator Hayao Miyazaki, 'The Boy and the Heron,' has been released in official Russian distribution. The 82-year-old master said back in 2013 that he was ending his career, and this turned out to be, without a doubt, the...

Ten years ago, Hayao Miyazaki released 'The Wind Rises' and announced to the world that he was retiring. However, the great master only lasted three years, and by 2016 he approached Toshio Suzuki (president of Studio Ghibli) with an idea for a new work, which he planned to finish before the 2020 Olympics. But the death of his close friend Isao Takahata forced changes to the project, which ultimately had to be reworked, and his advanced age also took its toll. So it turned out that the new anime 'The Boy and the Heron' took the genius and his team of 60 animators a full seven years to complete. Now we have the opportunity to see the result of these titanic labors (and on the big screen, no less). We advise you not to miss this chance.

What's the story?

In the midst of World War II, a boy named Mahito loses his mother in a fire caused by a shell hitting the hospital building. After some time, the boy's father marries Natsuko, his late wife's sister, and moves with his son from Tokyo to the countryside, where the new wife's family estate is located. The head of the family takes a job at a factory making airplane parts, while Mahito is sent to the local school. After a scuffle with classmates, the boy decides to hit his head with a stone to avoid attending school, so in the following days he stays home in the company of his pregnant stepmother, an elderly worker, and seven lively old servant women (very characteristic of Miyazaki). Moreover, after the move, a local gray heron begins to interact with the teenager.

At first, it just flies suspiciously close by. Then it shows the boy a tower built by his great-granduncle. Eventually, it even speaks directly to him and claims that Mahito's mother, who constantly appears to him engulfed in flames in his nightmares, is actually alive. The bird argues its words with the saying 'no body, no case,' brazenly asking the boy if he saw her dead with his own eyes. One afternoon, Natsuko goes into the forest alone without warning, and the heron (which turns out to be a hybrid with a human) takes advantage of the situation and lures Mahito into some magical alternate world, full of strangeness and wonders. It is here that the hero must find his step-aunt, make friends, and come to terms with his loss.

The Boy and the Heron, Spirited Away

In the original, the anime 'The Boy and the Heron' is called 'How Do You Live?', as one of the sources of inspiration for Hayao Miyazaki was the eponymous book by Yoshino Genzaburo, published in 1937. However, the animator's new work is not an adaptation of the bildungsroman, but it plays an important role in the plot (as does Miyazaki himself, the character Mahito discovers the book thanks to his mother). Another source of inspiration, as is often the case with the genius's works, is his own biography. An aircraft engineer father, life during the war, the loss of his mother—these details from the director's past have been reflected in his other masterpieces more than once, but here they literally come together, transparently hinting that Mahito's prototype is Miyazaki himself.

The film was released in Japan on July 14 and had no advertising campaign: no trailers, no film stills, no multitude of posters, only a promotional hand-drawn teaser poster with a bird. This policy worried the director a bit, but he trusted the studio president, and ultimately 'The Boy and the Heron' had the highest-grossing debut weekend in Ghibli's history ($13.2 million). The public missed the brilliant animator and showed that the name Hayao Miyazaki in the credits is itself an advertisement.

Moreover, the anime was created for one single person—the director's grandson—as a kind of farewell note with the message: 'Grandpa is soon moving to another world, but he leaves this film because he loves you.' As for us, we are simply incredibly lucky that film production is a capitalist process, and without our money, such a project could have led to financial disaster for Studio Ghibli. However, after the premiere (even considering only Japan so far), it became clear that no matter for whom the master creates his films—be it children, adults, relatives, or pets—audiences and critics are always ready to enjoy his works and financially support the flight of his imagination.

From the very first frames, the signature drawing style of Hayao Miyazaki is recognizable, hinting that we are looking at another visual work of art. The film can provide aesthetic pleasure even if watched without sound. Although the sound work and musical accompaniment here harmonize perfectly with the melancholic mood of the anime. Not surprising, since composer Joe Hisaishi has been working with the director since 'Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,' and for almost 40 years has been magnificently complementing the master's stories with his soundtracks. 'The Boy and the Heron' is no exception.

It is amazing how the animator manages to create images that are on one hand eerie, and on the other hand not frightening but almost pleasant creatures, like the gray heron that can transform into a human, or the omnivorous parrots obeying a tyrant king. There are also incredibly adorable characters, of course. Here, the 'cute' factor is handled by Warawara—the souls of unborn people, outwardly very similar to the 'Nice' meme. In general, the development of the fairy-tale world, landscapes, characters, and, importantly, food is simply stunning. But could it have been any different with Miyazaki?

The Wind Has Risen

In terms of content, 'The Boy and the Heron' is probably the most difficult work of the master to perceive, and also rich in symbolism. I am sure that after the first viewing, many meanings will remain misunderstood, but with each subsequent return to the anime, new details will begin to emerge and new interpretations will appear. You can delve into it endlessly and constantly find something, but there are also things that lie on the surface and are immediately understood.

Miyazaki does not offer anything fundamentally new and assembles the film from his usual images and techniques, but at the same time does not look derivative; on the contrary, he remains a unique author expressing himself on topics that concern him. He speaks to the viewer about very important things, such as the loss of a loved one or the horrors of war, and also reflects on life through the prism of his lived years. From the work, it becomes clear that the master bequeaths the future to a new generation of people who must try to preserve this fragile, imperfect, and unharmonious world, assembled from different parts and capable of easily teetering on the brink of collapse due to one awkward move.

'The Boy and the Heron' is a very pacifist and humanistic film, showing that eternally warring humanity inflicts wounds on itself that then do not heal for many years, turning into a heavy traumatic experience. Here, even the airplanes so beloved by the animator are associated with death. This is vividly expressed in moments where factory workers carry windshields from cockpits. They hoist them onto their shoulders like coffins, hinting that for pilots in war, the machines that conquer the sky can easily become their final resting place.

Through magical realism, Hayao Miyazaki becomes the Gabriel García Márquez of the animation world and creates an alternate reality alongside the real one, but the problem is that it is just as imperfect. For example, in it, pelicans feed on unborn souls (which is definitely bad), but in fact, for the birds, Warawara are the only source of food in this world. The creator of the universe brought the birds here, but did not account for the fact that there is almost no fish in the sea, and what fish there is, is beyond the pelicans' strength. So they are forced to eat the cute creatures just to avoid dying of hunger—it is a basic question of survival.

Overall, 'The Boy and the Heron' leaves a lot of food for thought after viewing. It is difficult to talk about this anime right away without digesting it first. Such animation is hardly intended for children (although I would not want to label the younger generation), and not every adult will understand what is happening on the screen. What can you do, since Miyazaki has gone into phantasmagoric visual metaphors and excessive symbolism? The main thing is that the director has once again proven his genius, and all we have to do is watch, enjoy, and find something new each time in this incredibly beautiful work.

What's the verdict?

Twenty years ago, 'Spirited Away' won an Oscar. Since then, it has been the first (and so far only) anime to receive this award. Perhaps the second anime to take home the main film statuette will also be attributed to Miyazaki, and it is unlikely that anyone will be surprised. Over his long career, the animator has created 11 independent feature films (why we love the previous ten — ), but if the new work truly becomes his last, then the director's final stroke turned out more than worthy.

Evgeny Belousov

Hayao Miyazaki — Wizard of the Land of Dreams: Why We Love Every Work of the Genius Animator?

On December 7, the possibly last anime by the brilliant Hayao Miyazaki, 'The Boy and the Heron,' will be released in official Russian distribution. In this regard, our editorial team decided to briefly tell why

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However, I want to believe that 'The Boy and the Heron' does not put an end to such a wonderful career. We will be very happy for another deception from the animator and hope that he manages to give the world at least one more work, which, according to statements, he is working on right now. Looking at all of Hayao Miyazaki's projects, we can say that we are all incredibly lucky to be contemporaries of such a genius, who cannot create mediocre films and produces a masterpiece every time.