The Boy and the Heron is an introspective story from an aging auteur. Studio Ghibli has released one of the best animated films of the year. Narratively complex and ambitious, audiences will leave this film eager for a second watch. Joe Hisaishi’s beautiful piano compositions is one of the best scores of the year.

A child experiences familial trouble and does not have the tools to handle it. The child travels into the natural world, and wanders past moss-covered buildings representing an older, pre-war Japan. Folklore with its associated spirits guide the child, and the child learns from their adventures. This is a story Hayao Miyazaki has been fascinated with for much of his career, and he further explores this narrative in The Boy and the Heron. Mahito (Soma Santoki) loses his mother during the bombings of World War II. His father, a wartime manufacturer, brings him to the countryside of Japan during the war, and he meets his new mother, Natsuko. Mahito has trouble adjusting to this new home, and becomes stoic and removed. He discovers a curious heron who cannot seem to leave him alone. This heron leads him to a world of supernatural beings, and he must journey through it to save his new mother Natsuko and bring her home. 

Joe Hisaishi’s score is, more than anything else, the stand-out of the film. Composer Joe Hisaishi has worked with Miyazaki on nearly every one of his films, and his scores are narratively dramatic and engrossing. While these scores are always complementary to the film, his scores are wonderful to listen to on their own. The majesty of the scores for Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle, the playfulness of My Neighbor Totoro’s score, or the exhilaration of Princess Mononoke’s score- these are some of the best compositions in cinema. The Boy and the Heron’s score feels different to Hisaishi’s past major works with Miyazaki. The score is mostly made up of contemplative piano, with the heron’s theme being a single piano note. The score leans into more wind instruments as Mahito grows more curious about the mysteries of this piece of land. As the action picks up, Hisaishi brings in the strings. Still, the film is mostly made up of gorgeous piano scores, with the highlight being “Ask Me Why (Mother’s Message)” and the later reprise. 

A centerpiece of the film is the climatic scene in which Mahito finds his stepmother, Natsuko, after journeying through this mystical world. She is lying in a delivery room, as white paper circles peacefully around the sleeping stepmother. Mahito disrupts the quiet room, and chaos erupts. White paper sticks to Mahito as he tries to reach his new mother, and she rejects him as he has rejected her in the real world. This scene left my theater in a quiet hush after this visually stunning and dramatic moment. This scene feels as if the thematic culmination of the entire film. 

Not all movies need to have clear-cut answers, particularly films that are as high-concept as Miyazaki’s fantasy films often are. There are many themes explored in this film– birth alongside death, exploitation, and legacy. I left the movie contemplating what all these characters meant: the Warawara, the birds, and the old man. Perhaps some elements were a bit disconnected, but this film demands repeat viewing in order to fully understand Miyazaki’s intentions. In the end, the film comes to a satisfying conclusion, with multiple plot points converging. There is a time-jump for the denouement, and a quiet ending before the film ends with a simple last line. 

It’s hard not to be reminded of Miyazaki’s age when thinking about this film. Miyazaki is 82 years old, and had presumably retired after his last film, 2013’s The Wind Rises. The Boy and the Heron’s focus on an old creator grappling with his legacy parallels Miyazaki’s age. But, the Miyazaki stand-in could very well be the protagonist of this film, as many of Miyazaki’s own autobiographical features appear in Mahito: the death of his mother, a fascination with planes,  adolescence in wartime. Maybe the Miyazaki stand-in is even the heron himself. We have recently seen auteurs examine aging: see Scorsese’s introspection of telling stories with his cameo in Killers of the Flower Moon, or Spielberg’s similar introspection with 2022’s The Fabelmans. Miyazaki appears to be looking to the past in this film as well, but its difficulty of placing who the Miyazaki stand-in is makes it that much stronger. It’s more complex than being simply autobiographical.   

Online conversation has increasingly made one thing clear: the people long for hand-drawn, traditional animation. There’s a sense of nostalgia associated with this work, and more recent attempts at CGI animation have felt generated rather than created. This is particularly a problem for American animated films. But, hand-drawn animation is slow. Miyazaki began his work on The Boy and the Heron in 2016. Sixty animators worked on The Boy and the Heron, with thirty six minutes of film being made after three years of production. Granted, the pandemic did result in delays. Compare this to The Super Mario Bros. Movie from this year– production started in 2020. 

Studio Ghibli’s place in the new world of the film industry post-pandemic is fascinating. Beyond the length of time it took to create The Boy and the Heron, The Boy and the Heron was released in Japan with no promotional material. Interestingly, The Boy and the Heron was partially funded with streaming package deals for the Ghibli library. The Boy and the Heron opened at number one at the domestic American box office, in stark contrast to Disney’s original programming centerpiece this year, Wish. It will be interesting to see what this means for the future of Studio Ghibli.

Grade: A

Oscars Prospects:
Likely: Best Animated Film
Should be Considered: Best Original Score

Where to Watch: In Theaters