No one can predict if Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki’s output has finally come to an end, but there’s a solemn finality to “The Boy and the Heron” that suggests he’d be satisfied if that were the case this time. Its contemplation is that of an artist who’s come full circle and is now probing at the very meaning of his extensive oeuvre through a discerning lens.
That Studio Ghibli decided to release the film in Japan without so much as an official still much less a trailer, seems like a sensible move once you’ve seen the finished adventure. Anticipation around anything involving Miyazaki sets the stage for disproportioned expectations. And while his visionary brand of wonder is present here, it takes on a singularly mature and introspective form that might throw some fans for a loop.
READ MORE: Toronto International Film Festival 2023: 26 Must-See Films To Watch At TIFF
His latest is a work of contradictions about the castles in the sky we willingly build to find respite from the burden of existing in our mortal reality. But for as much as fantasy provides a momentarily soul-nourishing escape, he seems to imply, we must all eventually face our humdrum humanity and hope to find solace in the magic of the mundane.
There’s a comforting logic to the universes Miyazaki has introduced us to. Within them, a path exists for the forces of good to triumph above all else. Our world doesn’t operate with such certainty, and yet every marvelous character in his fiction draws inspiration from something or someone in this chaotic plane. Flesh-and-bone life, and its essential flaws, has always served as Miyazaki’s most indispensable resource for his enchanting ideas.  
Even as someone whose professional career has revolved around crafting hand-drawn kingdoms of dreams, Miyazaki explains, in this new fable, perhaps more than in any other before, that despite all its messiness and horrors, our finite time alive is still worth returning to after taking a stroll through the more pleasant pastures of imagination. Only a few poignant elements in this new voyage are taken directly from the director’s biography, but the questions the narrative ponders, somewhat enigmatically, feel all too personal.
The sound of an alarm drops us straight into the preamble of a tragedy. Mahito (Soma Santoki), an eleven-year-old boy living in the final days of WWII, runs towards a building ablaze, desperately searching for his mother. But it’s too late. The scene calls to mind a similar incident in Isao Takahata’s devastating “Grave of the Fireflies.” Fiery flashbacks from that life-altering event will haunt young Mahito until he makes peace with the loss.
Two years later, Mahito’s father moves them to a large estate in the countryside that belongs to the family of the boy’s late mother. There, they’ll be closer to his factory, which produces parts for fighter planes, and to Mahito’s caring aunt Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura). Involved romantically with Mahito’s dad and pregnant, Natsuko is now also his stepmother.
In the company of the many books his mother left behind—including one Miyazaki himself received as a child from his own mom and which lends the film its Japanese title as well as some loose concepts: Genzaburo Yoshino’s “How Do You Live?”—Mahito learns about his Granduncle, a man obsessed with stories who built a mysterious tower and disappeared without a trace. This comes as the first warning about losing oneself to the illusions our minds create in an effort to avoid the pain of enduring the imperfect here and now.
The Boy and the Heron (2023)
CR: Studio GhibliConflicted about his new familial situation and feeling unwelcomed at school, Mahito begins to isolate. His inner disarray manifests as a violent act of self-harm. The gruesome wound shocks one more than anything else in the picture. It demonstrates the protagonist is far from simplistically innocent and harbors much darker, complicated, and unresolved emotions. The copious bleeding doesn’t result from a heroic feat or an action-heavy battle but rather reads as a boldly realistic visual representation of the kid’s silent suffering.
Miyazaki teases the supernatural forces that surround Mahito in this rural setting with unhurried control. Think of how in “My Neighbor Totoro,” the cuddly forest troll doesn’t appear until the home dynamic of the girls has been established. First looking from afar and later knocking at his window, a gray heron, animated to move with an otherworldly elegance, appears to invite Mahito to follow him, almost as if it had been waiting for him.
Later, the imposing bird unveils its true identity. In this world, the heron’s agile body functions as a disguise for the Grey Heron Man (Masaki Suda), a bizarrely amusing being mimicking a stocky, bald male with a prominent nose for a beak. The embodiment of one’s artistic instincts driving us to create, this figure’s purpose is to guide Mahito into another dimension. The grumpy birdman links the world of the tangible with that of the fanciful.
After so many aesthetically impeccable epics, it’s easy to take for granted the craftsmanship on display in Miyazaki’s animated masterworks, but the exquisite backgrounds with meticulous details in “The Boy and the Heron” remind us once more that what Studio Ghibli does is world-building of the highest order. There’s a richness in texture, color, and shading that’s never less than precise, lived-in, and awe-inspiringly gorgeous, even in the simplest of shots of an empty child’s room or the dilapidated entrance to a secret abode.
Mahito ultimately surrenders to the Grey Heron Man’s persistence, primarily to rescue Natsuko after she enters the ruins of the Granduncle’s mystifying residence, but also because his feathered host has enticed him with a half-truth about his mother. Together with Kiriko (Kô Shibasaki), one of the elderly ladies who tend to the property, the boy floats down to an idyllic realm where life and death converge, and time follows a distinct course.
Here, the souls of the deceased, shadowy figures akin to those riding the train in “Spirited Away” cannot fish. Now much younger in appearance and vigor, Kiriko is tasked with feeding them. The ghosts’ counterparts, the warawara, round marshmallow-like creatures (a chunkier take on the Kodama from “Princess of Mononoke”), are human souls about to be born. Everywhere you look, you’ll find revamped iterations of Miyazaki’s thematic motifs and visual compulsions; even Mahito resembles an older Sosuke from “Ponyo.”
Steeped in myth, this land surrounded by water reads as a space where all the forces beyond human control reside. If there’s one sequence that entrances while reflecting this point, it is an aerial dance between fate and divine intervention. When the warawara ascends into the sky in a luminous spiral, a flock of voracious pelicans tries to devour them. Listen for legend Joe Hisaishi’s transporting score suffused with menacing undertones.
Their feast ends when fire comes to the rescue. The flames responsible for Mahito’s inconsolable sorrow morph into benevolent and righteous energy on the other side and in the hands of the kindhearted Lady Himi (Aimyon). The unexplained, and the pain that it inflicts upon us, appear to have a patent intent in this extraordinary territory. Despite knowing it may lead to their demise, the pelicans go on repeating the same action, an irrational behavior akin to our own instinctive urges to constantly pursue what hurts us.
To have a prepubescent hero navigate these metaphysical worries lends “The Boy and the Heron,” a type of earned wisdom markedly different from the sentiments explored in Miyazaki’s previous “final” effort, “The Wind Rises.” Perhaps only the young can gaze into the future with hope in spite of what came before. Even among the director’s movies centering on young people confronting the perils of growing up, Mahito’s grief-stricken determination sets him apart from the fearfulness of someone like Chihiro, for example.
A metaphorical cloud of gloom, born of the tears from his lived experiences, walks beside him. And yet he stands at the threshold between childhood and adulthood, still capable of being wowed by a choir of singing fish or a deceiving liquid mirage. Each of his facial expressions is observed with a loving exactitude to communicate a layered personality.
The deeper we venture into the architecture of this domain, the clearer it is that Miyazaki is both Mahito and the Granduncle. At once a child prompted by his mother to dive into the reassuring pleasures of literature and an old man disillusioned with the colorful and timeless realm he’s crafted because no matter how utopian it is, earthly horrors rage on outside his confines. That tug-of-war between the fresh-faced bravery of a paladin and the jaded octogenarian holding on to the beauty he’s confected brims with urgency.
Indeed, it’s partly true that through storytelling, we can mourn those gone, we can relive our youth, and we can attempt to make sense of the incomprehensible, but in the end, even after all those spiritually fulfilling journeys inward by way of the tales we tell or are told, we must move on and carve a ground to stand on from what’s in front of us. We must close the book and move on, even if stepping away from the spectacle breaks us for a while.
As solemn as all that surely sounds, there are grotesque elements that still support these existential philosophies. The second, some of the parakeets that populate the Granduncles’ turf step into ours, they change size, and, more importantly, they copiously defecate on the human characters, who are all smiles covered in bird poop. It’s a small and scatological touch that speaks to Miyazaki’s demarcation between the idealized and the everyday.
When this elaborate escapade concludes just as swiftly as it began, we are asked to take the plunge and live wholeheartedly, bruises and all. “The Boy and the Heron” is Miyazaki’s strong-willed encouragement for us to persevere. If this is, in fact, a swan song, then it’s a ravishing one because no one has the ability to distill elemental truths into vividly rendered moving paintings like Miyazaki. How fortunate it is to be around now that animation’s greatest alchemist has gifted us his most personal spell yet. [A+]
Follow along for all our coverage of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival