The Boy And The Heron (2023) – A Triumphant If Flawed Comeback For An Animation Titan

As part of my endeavour to see as many films in the cinema this year as I possibly can, I thought there was no better place to start (and no better first thing to review) than a Studio Ghibli film, especially when it’s their first film in nearly a decade (no I am not counting that bizarre CG-animated hellspawn) and sees the return of Ghibli’s co-founder and animation legend Hayao Miyazaki. That film is the Boy and the Heron.  

While I’m not a connoisseur of all of Ghibli’s films, any person who is even a casual fan of animation seems to have an in-built respect for the company’s works, as one of the most unique and daring voices in all of animation. There’s no concessions to cliches, no treating the audience like idiots, and no half-arsed projects. Again, I’m ignoring whatever the hell that Earwig and the Witch thing was. And with a Hayao Miyazaki project, you can take all these attributes and scream them from the rooftops, because this guy has never ever missed. Spirited Away is known as one of the greatest animated films of all time for obvious reasons, My Neighbor Totoro and Ponyo are sublime adventures for younger audiences, and he has also delivered darker and more mature classics such as Princess Mononoke (Editor: and Nausicaa). 

Therefore, I knew going into The Boy and The Heron that this would be good. Miyazaki has a track record on animation that few others can rival, and he seems like the person who wouldn’t come out of retirement unless he had the ideas and the conviction to at least rival his storied output. There’s absolutely nothing in The Boy and The Heron that suggests a considerable inferiority compared to his masterpieces, but likewise there are a couple of things for me that hold this back from being a second Spirited Away or a second The Wind Rises.

But first, the good, and there is still a lot of it. After Miyazaki’s son made Earwig and The Witch and managed to distort and destroy the majestic look of Ghibli’s trademark style, it’s fantastic to see his dad making such a magnificent visual treat again. He has such a way with colour – everything looks so vivid and visceral but also calming and alluring, which is a very hard balance to strike. Miyazaki also manages to make this look visually consistent, a marvel and a half when The Boy and The Heron conjures up so many different images throughout its two-hour runtime. 

I challenge any other artist to make the naturalistic real world, a colony of evil anthropomorphic parakeets, benevolent bubble creatures, and a man hiding inside a grey heron feel like they belong in the same movie, never mind the same frame. That’s how much of a visual craftsman Miyazaki is.

Miyazaki also has not lost the art of setting up a simple but fantastic story. In a similar fashion to Spirited Away, the parents largely vanish from the picture until towards the end, and as a result the entire film is framed through the eyes of this young, precocious child who becomes absorbed into this fantastical world. All the characters we meet along the way are these beautifully-designed beings that make the world feel so alive, it’s a world teeming with detail and little story tidbits.

However, I don’t think the overall screenplay here is quite as strong as it is in something like Spirited Away or My Neighbor Totoro. For one, the pacing is an issue at points. Ghibli are known to sometimes make longer animated films than normal, and at 2 hours The Boy and The Heron is no exception, but in this case I think the film could’ve done with being trimmed down by 15-20 minutes, since the second act which takes place entirely in this fantastical world can begin to lose focus and momentum. 

The Boy and The Heron has many elements it’s playing with, and not all of these feel especially important or seamlessly coalesce into one streamlined story. It does have the excuse of the entire film’s so bursting with imagination that you can forget about the inherent problems with the story, but I still noticed them, and the fact I noticed them despite being sucked into the film’s entrancing world was a problem, and shows that the film isn’t as bulletproof of an experience as the top tier Miyazaki works.

I also want to bring up the change in this film’s title. When I found out a few years back that Miyazaki was returning to direct another film, it was called How Do You Live?, a title the film seemingly hasn’t retained anywhere except Japan. For an animated film, that’s a bold and interesting thing to call your “big fantastical film,” as Ghibli dubbed it. And I kind of wish it stuck.

The Boy and The Heron is by no means a bad title, but it doesn’t make the film feel nearly as distinct as How Do You Live, a title which actually fits some of the films’ themes really well. Miyazaki’s intention with The Boy and The Heron was to explore a male protagonist with complex feelings and insecurities, after somewhat more simplistic male characters in his earlier films. As such the film delves into some more existential topics in its third act that are really thought-provoking, such as how do we improve ourselves, how can we improve other people and, of course, how do you live?

I understand this is somewhat of a tangent, but I think giving this film a title like The Boy and The Heron makes it seem less special than it is. Even if it isn’t what I’d call Miyazaki at his most masterful, it’s still a fantastic treat to see him still working and creating dazzling worlds and compelling stories, despite the story here not being quite as structurally sound as his previous work. A title like How Do You Live would give the film an even greater sense of majesty, as not only are Studio Ghibli still standing out in the world of animation, but to watch one of their films feels less like sitting in a cinema screen watching a film, and more like experiencing a story charging at you from all sides. And personally, that’s how I want to live. 

Alex’s Archive – The Boy and the Heron