In the Japan of 1941, Mahito, 12 years old, experiences great torment. No sooner has he lost his mother in a tragic fire than he has to leave Tokyo for the countryside. This is because his father remarried the deceased’s sister, and everyone will live in the latter’s ancestral home. However, in the surrounding forest, Mahito discovers a mysterious condemned tower. At the same time, a strange creature seems determined to communicate with him. From discoveries to revelations, not only will Mahito enter the famous tower, but he will dive into a teeming parallel world. Back after having announced his retirement, the master of animation Hayao Miyazaki offers, with The boy and the heron(another) dazzling visual testament.
Released ten years ago, The wind picks up was to be the filmmaker’s final opus. Obviously, the director of Kiki the little witch And Princess Mononoke was too inspired to stop. Indeed, from a script dotted with autobiographical elements (see our wide angle devoted to the film during its North American premiere at TIFF), Miyazaki has designed a real feast for the eyes. So many memorable scenes…
We think, first of all, of the opening sequence, that of the fire: it is striking, frightening, and nevertheless imbued with terrible poetry. This passage is already to be ranked among the emblematic moments of Miyazaki’s filmography, alongside the arrival in Laputa at the end of a celestial storm in The castle in the Skyof the discovery of the enchanted “den” in My Neighbor Totoroof the transformation of the parents into pigs in Spirited awayof the uprising of the ocean (and its creatures) in Ponyo on the cliffetc.
There is also a sense of wonder when Mahito, after being picked up on a huge wreck, sees strange little white specters rising from the sea towards the skies: these are the spirits of babies on the verge of being born in “the other world”, the one from which Mahito comes, teaches him about the one who saved him.
Brimming with imagination
In this regard, the young protagonist will cross paths with a host of characters, some of whom, let’s say, strangely familiar. Without revealing anything, let us specify that the balance of this universe which exists below ours is threatened, and that Mahito will have a key role to play in the future.
Perhaps Miyazaki’s most baroque animation since The Howl’s Moving Castlein 2004, The boy and the heron is of incredible formal richness. The substance is not left out since, as with the vast majority of his films, Miyazaki offers a dense and complex story.
However, narrative clarity is never compromised. And then, a crucial aspect: the plot is fundamentally original and overflowing with imagination.
Here and there, we recognize motifs and concerns dear to the filmmaker (ecology, antimilitarist values, the figure of the mother), but it is never a repetition: rather beautiful variations. In short, now retired for good (really?), Hayao Miyazaki offers us a magnificent swan song – or heron song, it depends.