The Boy and the Heron: A Review?

 

The Boy and the Heron; or, How Do You Live? 

This is more in the nature of a rumination than a review. As a review I can only report what happens in the movie. As a rumination I can only tell you what I think it means, or means to me, which I’m sure is only one interpretation.

There seems to be some part of Hayao Miyazaki that always lives in the days of Japan during World War II; it is always coming out in his films in one form or another.

“During the Pacific War in Tokyo, Mahito Maki loses his mother Hisako in a hospital fire. Mahito's father Shoichi, an air munitions factory owner, marries his late wife's sister, Natsuko, and they evacuate to her rural estate. Mahito, distant to the pregnant Natsuko, encounters a peculiar grey heron leading him to a sealed tower, the last known location of Natsuko's architect granduncle.

“After a school fight, Mahito deliberately injures himself. The heron, now speaking, entices Mahito with promises of finding his mother. Mahito is nearly taken by a swarm of creatures but Natsuko saves him with a whistling arrow, inspiring him to craft his own bow and arrow. The arrow is magically imbued with true aim after it is fletched with the heron's feather. Mahito's reading of a book left by Hisako is interrupted when an ill Natsuko disappears into the forest. Leading one of the estate's elderly maids, Kiriko, into the tower, Mahito is deceived by a watery imitation of his mother made by the heron, which dissolves at his touch. Affronted, he pierces the heron's beak with his arrow, revealing a flightless creature, the Birdman, living inside it. A wizard appears, ordering Birdman to guide Mahito and Kiriko as all three sink into the floor.

“Mahito descends into an oceanic world. He is rescued from attacking pelicans and a forbidding, megalithic dolmen by a younger Kiriko, an adept fisherwoman who uses fire through a magic wand. They catch and sell a giant fish to bubble-like spirits called Warawara, which fly to the world above to be reborn. A pyrokinetic young woman, Himi, protects Warawara from predation by the pelicans. A dying pelican explains that their species is desperate to survive after being introduced to this world with no other food. Kiriko mediates peace between Mahito and the Birdman, and Mahito plugs Birdman's beak, restoring his flight. The two are separated by anthropomorphic, man-eating parakeets. Himi saves Mahito and shows him a counterpart of the tower which contains doors to many worlds. They enter a door leading back to Natsuko's estate and are spotted by Shoichi, but Mahito returns through the door to continue his search for Natsuko.

“Infiltrating the parakeets' kingdom, Mahito finds Natsuko in a delivery room. Natsuko rebuffs him, and Mahito calls her his mother. Himi incinerates the paper attacking them but all three are rendered unconscious by the encounter. In a dream, Mahito meets the wizard, Natsuko's granduncle. The wizard, preoccupied with a stack of stone toy blocks representing their dimension, requests Mahito, possessing the power of his bloodline, to succeed in the custodianship of this world. Mahito notices that the blocks are infused with malice. Waking up, he is freed from captivity by Birdman. They climb the tower to pursue the Parakeet King, who is delivering Himi to the wizard, hoping to convince him to maintain the world. The wizard has collected replacement blocks free of malice for Mahito and implores him to build a better world with them. Mahito refuses, acknowledging his own malice embodied by his self-inflicted scar, and vows instead to embrace those who love him.

“The Parakeet King takes the blocks and tries to build a better world himself, but the stack is too unstable and falls. The world begins to collapse and flood, and Mahito, Himi, and Birdman escape, reuniting with Natsuko and young Kiriko. Learning that Himi is his birth mother, Mahito warns her of her fate, but she returns to her own time without worry. Mahito returns with Natsuko, amidst an exodus of animals that revert to non-anthropomorphic forms. Birdman notices Mahito keeping a stone of power and advises him to forget his experiences. A charm doll carried by Mahito transforms back into the old Kiriko. Two years later, Mahito moves back to Tokyo with Shoichi, Natsuko, and his sibling.” – Wikipedia.

So much for what happens, summed up by Wikipedia in a far more compact form than I could ever provide. There have been reams of ‘clues’ surmised about the meaning of various elements: the Birdman represents Toshio Suzuki, film producer and long-time friend of Miyazaki, the wizard/granduncle ‘is’ Isao Takahata, the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, and so on. I’m not sure only one meaning can be applied to such a phantasmagoria; about the only thing in general that can be said is what Miyazaki himself has implied: that is a summation and farewell to his art, an acceptance of his own mortality and the nature of the fragility of his legacy.

But here is my own personal interpretation of it. The Tower, which is built around a mysterious natural core and shows a shabby, decaying exterior, represents Miyazaki’s art, maybe Studio Ghibli itself, wondrous and enigmatic, and only mediated into the real world by a frangible expression, a shell built around it. Its builder, wizard/granduncle/Takahata, wants to keep it going; the Parakeet King might represent various interests (like American companies) who want to keep it going for selfish reasons but have no ‘art’ to sustain the world, instead greedily devouring whatever they can get and clumsily trying to stack the blocks they do not understand. Mahito can be seen as Miyazaki, who must finally let his art go, choose the mortal world with all its suffering and reality, and somehow find ‘how to live’ and ultimately die. He might also be seen as Goro Miyazaki, who has himself rejected taking over from his father.

Anyway, that is my broad interpretation of it. I am sure there are many other ways to take it, as it is with most good works of art. Above all, it is an evocative dance of color and form, delightful to the eye, emotionally engaging, and philosophically challenging. On the other hand, maybe it’s just an amusing fantasy adventure cartoon, 'a woon-derful-a fairy tale.' It can be both!