Top 15 Movies of 2023: No. 12 - The Boy and the Heron

12. The Boy and the Heron, dir. Hayao Miyazaki

The Boy and the Heron might be a complete mess. I left this movie not really sure if any of its pieces fit together. There's a lot of movie in The Boy and the Heron. It is a dazzling fantasy adventure and also a bittersweet work of nostalgia. It combines dark memories of WWII, black magic, alternate universes, grief and loss, a cycle of life and rebirth, and also Seven Dwarfs of miniature grandmas. I am not sure how anxieties of a step-mom connect with Japan's failing war effort, or how all those work as a narrative with a lush magical landscape full of monster birds. At best I can do is imagine the movie as a metaphor for Hayao Miyazaki's own sense of self as an artist. Much as The Wind Rises was about the destructive consequences of being a creator, The Boy and the Heron might be about the terror of finally not creating. Finally retiring.

...Maybe.

It ultimately does not matter if anything in The Boy and the Heron fits together or "works". Sure, it is great when Miyazaki nails a direct commentary. But he's just as often making surreal dream-like movies whose set pieces are not paragraphs to an essay. Each one is their own conclusion. The Boy and the Heron feels like four or five different movies, each one beautiful and amazing, and it really does not matter if the movie about the Parakeet Kingdom does not conclude things that the 1945 Japan movie set up. Who cares what the birds "mean" when the birds are extremely cool as just being birds? Why does everything have to mean something? Can we just sit back and enjoy the greatest anime director of all time nail it at his craft for (probably) the final time?

There is a scene halfway through this movie where our titular Boy, Mahito (Soma Santoki) has traveled to another world, and discovers a race of tiny white inflatable balloon creatures. They're these ghost-like babies bouncing around and being the cutest little guys the film screen could ever conjure. They're pure cartoon, all smiles and buoyant and happy emotion. I loved these little things so damn much, I was never happier in a movie in 2023 than I was looking at these great Pokemon that Miyazaki had gifted us. I actually started tearing up, I was so pleased. We get an explanation as to what these babies were, how they fit into the life cycle of this fairy world and our own. None of that makes any sense based on what we learn later about the true nature of this Otherworld. The babies never come back in The Boy and the Heron. They are ultimately irrelevant to everything plot-wise. 

But who could ever complain about them? You want the movie to be less joyous?

The fact is that The Boy and the Heron is a glorious showcase of what happens when you let Miyazaki cook. Also, how great the meal can be when he allows other cooks in the kitchen. One of the most striking visual moments is the opening scene during a firebombing of Tokyo. This was done entirely by long-time collaborator, Shinya Ohira. The animation style shifts entirely to this feverish nightmare, where Tokyo is full of greasy silhouettes, barely human anymore before the flames, further twisted by the speed of our hero's desperate run. There's an equally fluid scene involving paper craft tearing as a kind of magical defense, which becomes as intense and exaggerated as a city on fire. I'm not sure who made that sequence, but Miyazaki assembled at hell of a team to pull off one of his most visually impressive movies ever. I could give up any pretension of insight right now and just gush about the amazing things The Boy and the Heron has to offer. Like the most dripping and erotic food porn jelly sandwich in anime history.

It would be very difficult to actually write a plot summary of The Boy and the Heron since the plot is so unbalanced. It ultimately comes down to Mahito trying to rescue his aunt/step-mother, Himi (Aimyon) from another dimension that steals them both from their idyllic Japanese pastoral estate. There's also an annoying bird that turns out to be the disguise of a nasty little man (Masaki Suda). (I had to cheer when the heron revealed its big gnarly chompers, Miyazaki is fucking doing it again, boys. Bravo.) The grand climax ends up being Mahito choosing between a world full of wonders and the deeply-flawed real world. It is something like a more confusing, if you can believe it, Evangelion 3.0+1.0. Ultimate both alluring fantasies that just want their audiences to go outside. The cartoon grass looks delicious but touch real grass, Miyazaki says. I think.

It is interesting that Mahito's life is semi-autobiographical for Miyazaki himself. Like the director, Mahito's father is a fighter manufacturer for the Imperial government. But Miyazaki might actually be identifying with Mahito's great-uncle (Shōhei Hino), the aged master of the fantasy land, who is looking for a successor. He has this wondrous empire full of goofy Parakeet militarists. But the empire must fall, for the real world matters more. There will not be another Miyazaki. The parakeets must return to their realistic proportions in Showa-era Japan and poop all over everybody. We must except reality, even in the face of fictional splendor.

I think. The parakeets might just be parakeets. I'm not sure I even care. I just really like this movie.