Hayao Miyasaki's cinema has been characterized by dealing with a series of topics that we find in his films. Perhaps the best worked theme is that of the conflict between the order of nature—sometimes the fantastic order—and the “progress” of human civilization. His heroes always function as a point of dialogue between both worlds. Their origin is always human, but thanks to a sensitivity and imaginative capacity they manage to penetrate the realms of nature and spirituality. This is the case of Nausicaä, who faces Lady Kushana's army in order to eradicate the destruction of the Contaminated Forest, which is contaminated by the “advance” of human civilization. This is the case of Prince Ashitaka, who tries to pause the war between Lady Eboshi and the Iron Nation and the forest, the spirits of him and Princess Mononoke. This is also the case of Satsuki and Mei, who are able to perceive the soot spirits and who together with Totoro plant seeds to plant trees in the area and then make them grow with the rain dance. The same goes for Chihiro, who is able to access a spiritual world where each character represents a questionable characteristic of humanity. She is able to dialogue with this spiritual and representative world to finally find some peace. Without giving more examples, it is a motif that is repeated in Miyasaki's films and that we will find in his new film.
The Boy and the Heron tells the story of Mahito Maki, a 12-year-old boy who loses his mother in a fire, a product of war. His father owns a frame ammunition factory and, upon the death of his wife, he marries the younger sister of Mahito's late mother. She lives in the country along with several elderly spinster women, so father and son move in with them. Mahito is extremely distraught by the loss of his mother and cannot adapt to his new home. He doesn't fit in at school and doesn't feel comfortable with his aunt Natsuko, who is now pregnant. As an escape from all this, he becomes interested in a mysterious heron who begins to harass him and who will reveal to him the existence of an absolutely fantastic universe.
Here comes the second motif that is repeated in the director's production: the child who escapes tragedy through the fantastic nature. Mahito connects with a fantastic world and escapes—or perhaps reconciles in it—the death of his mother. It is the same thing that happens with the sisters of My Neighbor Totoro, who suffer from the tuberculosis that his mother faces, or Chihiro's conflictive relationship with his family. However, something crucial comes in here, which is the creative and imaginative capacity of Mahito's character. As the director and others have pointed out, this film is the one most closely related to the author's biography.
YOU CAN SEE: Woman who inspired Barbie rejects Oscar snub to Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwing
For this reason, I do not find it unreasonable to make a parallel between the figure of the creator (such as Miyasaki) and Mahito. The boy in the film is able to access a magical space where a series of worlds and times that happen in parallel are ordered and controlled through a tower, which is said to have been built by his great-uncle many years ago. The uncle is the sort of teacher who controls everything and with some geometric pieces he maintains an order that is already on the verge of breaking down. It is the turn to leave the baton to someone with the creative capacity necessary to order the universe. That would have to be Mahito, who moves away from the world of war to this supernatural world. The same thing happened with Miyasaki, who left the family warplane business aside to dedicate himself to animation.
In both cases, imagination and creative ability offer an escape from the harshness of the world of war. Furthermore, the fantastic world is not only a way out, but a battle against the modern world of man. I say this because of what happens when Mahito enters this fantastic universe. Animals—representative of the non-human—have human capacities and sizes. In this universe, people and animals have the same abilities and powers. It is a world without human superiority. The change is evident when the parakeets leave the tower and lose their size and strength.
Without a doubt, the film is one of the director's most complex and would be a good culmination of his career. The amount of images and symbols that he proposes is vast. I'm not even close to understanding them all. But I do think that there is a great work of composition in terms of the fantastic. Not only symbolic, but visual. Although Miyasaki has always stood out for this, in this installment he surpasses everything before.
YOU CAN SEE: 'Poor Things': where to see, release date, cast and synopsis of Emma Stone's film
The mix between Eastern and Western culture fuels the visual richness of the film. The drawings are extremely suggestive. At one point in the film, Mahito enters a world of islands, birds and water, reminiscent of the paintings of Arnold Böcklin. He builds castles, libraries and European villas, but without leaving aside Japanese culture. The entrance to this fantastic world—in fact—is a very European library tower. It has inscriptions that remind me of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. The tower functions as the station in Spirited Away. Both are buildings that allow entry to a parallel world, which will serve to reconcile certain things in the characters. Both Chihiro and Mahito enter conflicted non-human universes and emerge relatively resolved. The films are, in that sense, a kind of bildungsroman. We have hurt, conflicted and immature characters, who grow throughout the story and resolve or reconcile their conflicts. In both cases, the spirits or characters that appear in these universes serve as representations of the psyche of the heroes who enter these territories. Mahito manages to reconcile the death of his mother, accept the stepmothership of his aunt and manages to get out of the emotional stagnation and incomprehension in which he was involved at the beginning of the film.
Without a doubt, a film worth watching and watching again many times. Very complex and loaded, perhaps it does not finish solving everything it opens. I think everything closes (or doesn't close) and ends very quickly. I don't think it is Miyasaki's most successful film nor the most rounded. It's not close to being one, but it is an important film that fulfills a unique function within an author's career. Very good, but not excellent.
#Film #Boy #Heron
