The gravitational pull of Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki takes life seriously. The handmade animations by the legendary Japanese artist, who co-founded the famous Studio Ghibli, endure in our minds’ eye because he instils them with his close study of life. His art turns the indiscernible moments of life into memorable beauty. Writing about Miyazaki for Time magazine's 100 most influential people of 2024, the filmmaker Guillermo del Toro defines him as “entirely genuine” and “the single most influential animation director in the history of the medium”. The apron-wearing, cigarette-puffing Miyazaki is not willing to hang his apron even at 83, despite previous threats of retirement and then releasing another and then another film.
Studio Ghibli's animated films have shaped the imagination of many generations of children and now hook into our hearts even as adults. Many fans awaited The Boy and the Heron impatiently to see what wonders a new film would hold. It certainly does not disappoint and has many of the characteristics of Miyazaki's work. Del Toro claims it “a subtle masterpiece” in fact and I second that. It “exerts a gravitational pull—and many of us feel that pull intensely,” he states.
The Boy and the Heron employs many familiar themes that have been explored in previous films. War is one of the most common themes in Miyazaki's films and The Boy and the Heron too is set against the backdrop of the Japanese theatre of World War 2.
The film begins with a sense of emergency, opening with the wail of an air raid siren. It wakens young Mahito from his sleep and in a matter of minutes his world goes up in flames. The hospital his mother is in has set on fire. Little Mahito runs back to his room and dresses himself rushing out to follow his father on foot. The world out there is filled with ghostly people back-lit with orange and red fingers of fire licking the smokey sky, ash and embers flying in the night air. The boy fights through this Munchian wasteland, crying for his mother, gasping for breath and running with all his might to save her. She is lost in the fire.
Three years later, Mahito and his father leave their hometown. His father remarries. However, his new stepmother is a terrible reminder of his mother. She is her sister, Natsuko and looks just like her. She isn't her. And she is pregnant.
Mahito is helpless and disgruntled in this new life. It was not his choice and his eyes show how much he hates it while he outwardly behaves like a good boy. When he reaches his new home, there is the titular grey heron perched on the roof, watching him. Its other-worldly aura augurs a sense of mystery, as if the bird is some sort of spirit guide awaiting the boy.
In the house, where his mother and aunt (now stepmother) grew up, live seven grannies who take care of the home and look after Mahito when he moves in. The grannies sort of come with the house; one tells Mahito's father that she has been around for 60 years and seen some very strange things occurring around the place. Each wrinkly old woman is drawn with a distinct facial feature. Caricatures of old women are a stylistic motif in Miyazaki's films. However, together they huddle and move like one living organism.
The central theme for his films is the magical world. Always, through his vivid fertile imagination, Miyazaki leads his protagonists into a world other than the one we know. The sorrows of this world are usually resolved in the other imaginary world, but it is not always a safe place. It comes with its own snares, traps and pitfalls. It requires the protagonists to show courage and overcome whatever darkness besieges their life.
Mahito is haunted by dreams of his mother burning like a phoenix and calling out for him to save her. These dreams transform into ‘reality’ in the magical world that the grey heron leads him to.
The film is very well-paced and there is no shortage of breathtaking visuals. The Boy and the Heron delivers the startling spectrum of fantastical images that fans expect from Studio Ghibli. The events that happen to Mahito in the beginning and the turn of events when he starts taking action sustain the viewer's attention mostly through the visual storytelling and sparse dialogue.
Miyazaki's process of writing a story begins with images alone. He draws whatever character or action he sees in his mind's eye before he even knows the narrative behind it. The drawing develops into a story. Perhaps that is yet another reason for the perfectly depicted movements you see in the films.
In The Boy and the Heron there are too many poetic moments of action and sound editing. The scenes of Mahito's convalescence are created with details that lend an endearing gentleness to them. Mahito hides from everyone how he got hurt on his temple while the whole house is worried for his recovery and visiting his bedside. He resents the father who is now being protective of him and doesn't want to talk to him or anyone. A granny puts a compress on his head while his father demands to know who hurt him. Mahito puts the towel over his eyes as if to block out everything that pains him.
In his ailment, he goes in and out of consciousness. Whenever he closes his eyes, he dreams of his mother and when he opens them there is the grey heron goading him to save her. The bird becomes a nuisance for the boy.
Later their relationship also provides well-timed humour in the narrative as the boy and the heron squabble with each other like siblings. Mahito doesn't reserve his annoyance and increasing distrust of the bird who always lies according to folklore. The heron perpetually cribs about the boy and his stubbornness. On the one hand, he takes pleasure in provoking Mahito and, on the other hand, he is too scared to follow Mahito's daring plans. There are parakeets, serving a parakeet king with comical bravado, who also lend humour in showing zombie-like tendency.
Typical of Ghibli protagonists, Mahito takes action and makes himself a bow and arrow to get rid of his nagging foe, attaching the heron's moulted feathers to the arrow which give it magical power.
The boy is resolute in undertaking a journey full of peril if he will save his mother at the end of it. His determination shows in the portrayal of his eyes. When he is sick, his very being looks weak because of his half-closed eyes. The changes in his facial expressions are remarkable.
Other minute changes in frames that are filled with big action, like forces of nature at play – wind or raging sea – catch your eye surprisingly as they are unnoticeable to the unseen observer. For instance, how Mahito's bandage comes off as he climbs out of the seawater and onto Kiriko’s boat.
I loved the scenes that showed the boy immersing into deep water, whether it is in the pond by the house or being absorbed inside the dream world.
The tower built by Mahito's great grand uncle is the portal to the dream world. The heron lures the boy inside it on somebody's command by creating an illusion of Mahito's mother.
The yearning to be with someone who is not there is another theme you will find in many other Ghibli films. The boy's search for his mother in this film may reflect biographical details about Miyazaki. He was preoccupied with his mother's death by tuberculosis and in many of his films based the strong women characters on his mother. By dint of creative imagination, Miyazaki may have be assuaging his own desire to come to terms with his mother's death as well.
For Mahito, meeting Himi (who is his mother's girlhood version) and then the originator (his great granduncle) of the world other people cannot see enables him to reach a resolution of his angst. The randomness of his bizarre and wonderful experience of this parallel dimension imbues his life with meaning and helps him make sense of the unpleasant things that did not.
Some fans found the film, which comes after a hiatus of a decade, at par with Miyazaki's staggering portfolio. Yet, it did not hit the notes that other fan faves like Spirited Away or Howl's Moving Castle did. I agree, with some reservation. Whereas the latest work may not have the splendour of some of the past beloved films, it delivers a message of more clarity because it expounds the creative wisdom of an elderly animator who is tormented and energised by magnifying the briefest moments that make up life.