Hayao Miyazaki2023 movies boy and heron It felt like a eulogy. There is an indescribable sense of loss permeating the story, an underlying sadness of leaving that is not directed at anyone or anything. The film is as much a self-mourning for an aging filmmaker as it is for a child dealing with the death of a parent, the fear of change and growing up, and perhaps a lament for the loss of childhood and the ease with which imagination can slip into it. Come. We can also think of this story as an ode to the ever-changing world and how we must go with the flow and sometimes even choose to make changes with our hands.
On the surface, the plot follows a real-life story of a young boy in Japan during World War II. As the film opens, Masato loses his mother in a firebombing of Tokyo. He makes a desperate journey through the burning city to the hospital where she lives, a nightmare of flames, faces and despair. He fails to reach her in time, and the next thing we see in real life is when he and his father leave Tokyo for the countryside. His mother’s sister still lives at home and she is pregnant with his father’s child, a fact that Masato has mixed feelings about. But at this moment, the boy held himself too tightly, barely letting any emotion show. If he was angry with his father, he would not allow himself to show it. If he was uncomfortable with his aunt’s words about her being his new mother, he kept those feelings to himself. arrive When he was finally alone in his new bedroom at home: When he was alone, he collapsed on his bed as if the ropes holding him up had been severed.
A great blue heron hangs around in the new house’s garden, which is large and rambling and visually blends temple and Western-style home. The heron quickly zeroes in on Mahito, and soon after, the boy hears the heron talking to him, and we begin to see a man emerging from the heron’s mouth. The bird is tied to a strange structure built by a missing uncle, and eventually, we learn that, as a girl, Mahito’s mother disappeared in the tower for two years. My uncle seemed to want the real person to come to the tower. As he enters it, he discovers a fantastical world filled with echoes and shadows of his own, ultimately leading him to make a choice: stay and continue his great-uncle’s work, or return to Japan.
The film is loosely adapted from two books: How are you doing? go through Yoshino Gensaburo and book of lost things Author: John Connolly. Yoshino’s novel, published in 1937, actually appears in the film as a real-life mother’s gift, with its central question of how protagonist Cooper should behave in order to create the world he wants to live in, a subject more thematically than anything else. The specific content is relatively realistic. Although the real person reads the book, he does not talk about it, and through his actions as he travels through his great-uncle’s world, we see him pondering the title of the novel. Connolly’s novel, on the other hand, tells the story of a twelve-year-old boy grieving the death of his mother who finds himself traveling through a magical land ruled by a fallen king. darker than that boy and heronBut one of the most striking elements of the film is that it combines the work of Connolly and Yoshino to create a whole that feels organic despite its obvious transitions between the real world and the imagined world.
We can also track many elements Studio GhibliThe video adds to the feeling of a eulogy through the journey of real people. While some elements are Miyazaki’s autobiography—during the war, the family moved to the countryside for safety, and his father, like the real person, worked in the aviation industry—care seems to have been taken to set the stage for the Gib as we know it. Powerful Movies planted the seeds. The horrific opening scene screams Grave of the FirefliesGreat-uncle’s tower reminds me of Howl’s tower howl’s moving castle. The salt marshes that appear many times in the film remind us of when marnie was therethe ocean scene comes to mind rollbackand the move without a real mother—and the subsequent emergence of new siblings—are all straight out of my neighbor chinchilla. We can see the following elements Spirited Away, city in the skyand Princess Mononoke and the work of real fathers The wind blows. These little bits and pieces make this movie an almost have Watch it more than once, as it can be viewed through several different lenses.
GKIDSThe film is available in a variety of editions – steelbook, 4K UHD/BD combo, or regular BD/DVD set. (My review copy was the middle option.) The discs contain tons of extras, including a great interview with Joe Hisashi, Toshio Suzukiand Takeshi Hondastoryboards, drawings by animation supervisor Honda, as well as a more basic trailer and music video, while additional physical items include a small poster and a booklet with Miyazaki’s original notes. The graphics quality is exquisite (listening to Honda discuss the contrast between CG and hand-drawn animation only adds to the appreciation), and the vocal cast is excellent. British Dubbing It sounds like my own version of the script, while staying close to the lines of some Japanese voice actors, Rob PattinsonThe heron is particularly outstanding in this regard.
animation supervision Takeshi Honda He said in interviews that he found the first half of the film lonely. This is a fair statement and it captures the Arrietty’s Secret World and when marnie was thereinterestingly also based on a children’s book. Loss in childhood can feel lonely, and later, loss of Childhood felt the same way. boy and heronA film in which everything happens and nothing happens captures those feelings in a film that hopefully is both an ode to and the culmination of a legendary career.