The Boy and the Heron (2023), or as it is called in Japan, How Do You Live? takes some time for the audience to understand fully what is happening. Still, its thought-provoking and emotionally profound message makes this movie a fitting farewell and culmination of everything Hayao Miyazaki, the master of animation, has accomplished and given to the world. Going into the theater, I had no expectations for this film other than that it would be Miyazaki's final movie. Having seen The Boy and the Heron, had it not been for the excellent Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), the former would have been considered my pick for 2023's best animated feature film. So, without further ado, here is my analysis of The Boy and the Heron.
The Boy and the Heron follows a Japanese boy named Mahito Maki during World War II, who, after losing his mother to a fire, moves with his father to his late wife's sister, Natsuko's, estate in the countryside with her elderly maids. Once there, he encounters a mysterious grey heron who leads Mahito to an abandoned tower where Natsuko's architect granduncle was last seen. The heron then reveals itself to speak and invites Mahito to help save his mother, despite Mahito's insistence that she is deceased. This leads Mahito into the tower, where he meets various dynamic and fascinating characters, including a young woman named Himi with pyrokinetic powers in a fantastical and oceanic world with doors leading to different places scattered across time and space. Simultaneously, there are outside forces within the mystical world that threaten to upend this quest in the form of anthropomorphic parakeets with a tyrannical leader, which serves as a timely metaphor for the recent rise of totalitarian leaders with the power to jeopardize the fight for peace and the future itself. Will the young heroes' quest succeed? Like life on this Earth, the eventual outcome is an open question.
This movie is inspired by Genzaburo Yoshino's 1937 novel How Do You Live?, which Mahito reads a copy of at one point in the story, and Miyazaki's life story of growing up with a father who worked on airplanes during World War II and having a close emotional connection with his mother. While not a beat-for-beat adaptation of the novel, several relevant themes are carried over into this film, especially those revolving around the human experience and existentialism coupled with Miyazaki's long-held stance on leaving the Earth a better place than when one found it for future generations to live and thrive in, as exemplified by Natsuko's granduncle, who, like Miyazaki, has accomplished much throughout his life and is actively searching for a successor to carry on his legacy. Again, whether someone will willingly rise to the occasion or be handpicked to carry on Miyazaki's life story is an open question.
There is an overall timelessness to everything about Miyazaki's films, from the visual aesthetics to the recurring themes of environmentalism and technology, and decades from now, these films are sure to stand the test of time long past others. As is always the case with Hayao Miyazaki's movies, the hand-drawn animation and painted backdrops are astonishingly beautiful. Every frame of this film is worthy of being framed and displayed in a museum for generations of viewers to study and admire. I believe that long after this film has ended its run in movie theaters, the images from this picture will count as some of humanity's greatest treasures ever created.
While slow at first, The Boy and the Heron succeeds in serving as a cap off of Hayao Miyazaki's long and illustrious career not just at Studio Ghibli but with the animation medium as a whole. I am so glad to have watched this movie in the theater (and on short notice, too). I know that years from now, I will always treasure the rare experience of seeing a Miyazaki picture for the first time without prior knowledge or anticipation. See this film, for it is a memorable experience that has to be seen to be believed.
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