The Boy and the Heron

• Japanese: 君たちはどう生きるか, Hepburn: Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka, lit. How Do You Live?
• Written and Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
• July 24, 2023

Voice Cast

• Shoichi Maki-Christian Bale
• The Parakeet King-Dave Bautista
• Natsuko / Hisako-Gemma Chan
• Noble Pelican-Willem Dafoe
• Lady Himi-Karen Fukuhara
• Granduncle-Mark Hamill
• Mahito Maki-Luca Padovan
• The Grey Heron-Robert Pattinson
• Kiriko-Florence Pugh
• Aiko-Barbara Goodson
• Izumi-Denise Pickering
• Eriko-Melora Harte
• Utako-Barbara Rosenblat
• Oyuki-Nika Futterman
• Kazuko-Debi Derryberry
• Assorted Parakeets-Mamoudou Athie, Tony Revolori, Dan Stevens
• Additional Voices-Andrew Kishino, Paul Nakauchi, Michael Sinterniklaas, Keone Young

During World War II a boy who moves to the countryside after his mother’s death and discovers an abandoned tower where he enters a fantastical world with a talking heron. Happens all the time.

I love Japanese animation. Their feature films are unafraid to present like a piece of live action. They are dramatic and cinematic. It’s exceptionally rare to the point of being close to a Bigfoot sighting for a western made animated film to do such. Sometimes though that can be a bit to the detriment of movie when it falls victim to some of the issues that plague too many movies today.

Things like taking too much time establishing something. In this case the baseline of normality for our main character Mahito Maki. Writer and director Hayao Miyazaki spends a great deal of time showing his normal life. Maybe a little too much time. We even get to watch the minutia of when he makes a bow. At two hours this movie certainly doesn’t move quickly. But it’s a beautiful to watch two hours even though things are happening slowly.

Hand drawn animation is art. The Boy and the Heron is no different. And we get some fantastic designs to take in. The old lady designs especially are some of the most engaging designs in the whole movie. When they do the close-ups, they are just fascinating to look at. Not that the blue heron (aka The Birdman) is anything to sneeze at. There are moments when it looks a bit like nightmare fuel such as when we first encounter it and it’s talking with the teeth appearing as well as hints of the nose. Just disturbing.

This is a coming-of-age tale set during World War II in Japan focusing on Mahito Maki-a bit of a stand in for Hayao Miyazaki as I have read. After the loss of his wife in a fire, Mahito’s father marries her sister (because that’s normal) and they go off to her family’s rural estate. Mahito must come to terms with the loss of his mother in a fire and his new life in general.

I think that gets a little muddled here and there with the use of the more fanciful elements as well as just general weirdness. And that’s coupled with the movie taking its good old time to get to the meat of the story. Those extraneous elements certainly slow the pace. They don’t bring it to a grinding halt but rather bring things to a quite leisurely stroll. It’s a beautifully done film. Solid direction. Individual distinct characters. Authentic dialogue. It has everything a great drama should have.

Despite its length and love of the nitty gritty of things, you cannot help but keep watching. It is a fanciful story with talking parakeets, unusual characters, and gives you a hope that it will pick up as it approaches the climax. Things get important but not in a way that feels big or significant though Mahito does come to terms with his issues. But I never felt fulfilled by that event. It was more like “Okay.” A tighter story with less padding and I would feel different.

The Boy and the Heron is good film. It’s a little on the wrong side but well worth the time. Beautiful work out in a story and a film with something say.