The Boy and The Heron International Premiere Review (No Spoilers)

foreign with directing is this the seventh episode of the original lupon III 1971 TV show halfway through production he and ISO Takara took the reins from director masayaki osumi leaving the two of them to run the production for the remainder of the series when that series was finished Haya went on to spend most of the 1970s working with takaada and a number of other TV series and a few original short films of his own creation he ended the decade directing his very first TV series this time without takaada's involvement at all in the 1978 anime Future Boy Conan then in 1979 he went back to the loop on the third franchise for his first feature film in the wildly successful castle of cagliostro following this Miyazaki went and directed Two episodes of the second loop on the third series wrote the Nazca and the Valley of the wind manga directed a few episodes of Sherlock hound and then went back to Features directing the Nazca in the Valley of the Wind movie which like cagliostro was a huge success following those two hits Hyo teamed up with ISO and created Studio Ghibli at their Studio he directed Castle in the Sky My Neighbor Totoro Kiki's Delivery Service Porco Rosso the music video on your mark Princess Mononoke Spirited Away a bunch of short films that you can't watch unless he goes to the Ghibli Museum in Japan how's Moving Castle Ponyo and his final film for the fourth time The Wind Rises looking back at this 50-plus year-long career of Animation you'll be struck at the Quality Miyazaki is maintained for all those decades and how now even in the Dismal 2020s this 82 year old grandpa can utilize all that history all that knowledge all that technical skill that he has acquired over the years to create another amazing 2D animated Masterpiece his latest feature carries with it the legacy of all that he's made before and I had the extreme Fortune to be in the first audience outside of Japan to watch that film the boy in the Heron or how do you live and I'd like to offer some of my spoiler-free comments about my experience with the movie however this film has very intentionally been given almost no marketing or promotion whatsoever so if you prefer to know absolutely nothing at all I'd leave now even still there's a lot about the boy in the Heron that you could probably assume on your own without me having to tell you yes every single frame of it is a beautiful painting yes the movement of the characters and the momentum of the world is breathtaking yes every single female character is strong as hell yes there are a bunch of scenes of things flying through the air or gliding through the water yes it does that thing where it shows a beautifully detailed background and then moves laterally across it so you can see the whole image yes there are several Fantastical scenes stunningly realized and a bunch of creatively inventive ways yes their themes about living harmoniously with nature the importance of family the human cost of war the transition of childhood to adulthood and yes don't worry even though the setting doesn't really call for it Miyazaki still found an excuse to draw parts of an airplane there's so much about the boy in the Heron that feels like Miyazaki running through his Greatest Hits and this is probably why so much of the conversation is focused around the ways this film parallels so many ideas and sequences that he has shown before if you care to look online you can already see how a few scenes in the only currently released trailer mirror scenes from his other films but with this said I still ended up finding the boy in the Heron to be one of the most unique films miyazaki's ever made again no spoilers but the film is sort of what you would get if you put every Miyazaki movie in a blender with some heavy leanings and dispirited away that's my favorite movie of all time so you can imagine how I felt watching this film that reminded me so much of it at the start of the movie I was almost so comfortable with the Spirited Away connection that I have convinced myself that this would end up being a sort of spiritual successor to that film but as should be expected hayo Miyazaki did something creatively unexpected and it resulted in a film that was consistently surprisingly in ways that I never would have guessed from someone who's been a huge fan of his work for so long like this is the only Miyazaki film that I can genuinely say is probably improved upon by a second watch there's a lot of distance he puts between the audience and his characters this time around with an especially muted First Act and it makes for a film that is asking way more of the people watching it than any of his other features you may not believe me when I say this but I actually got a Vibe similar to The Works of Satoshi Khan while watching The Boy in the Heron the supernatural elements of the film is ultimately explained in the end but this is only in the literal last moments of the movie and even then there is plenty left to interpretation far more than you'd expect from someone like Miyazaki similar to Satoshi Khan's work the supernatural stuff just kind of happens in the boy in the Heron flowing into and out of scene suddenly and often unremarked upon in fact there's very few moments in the film where Miyazaki provides any real context Beyond his character's expression and their body language to Showcase pivotal emotional sequences that might be a problem if he wasn't the world's greatest animator but in his hands it provides so many moments of small indistinct Humanity that you rarely think about but so often see in people's movements and presence the boy in the Heron is far less explicit than any of his other films in terms of its messaging and the whole piece lends itself to the Sleepy dreamlike quality that Khan so frequently stamped his films with there's no doubt in my mind that come December 8th YouTube is going to get filled with the boy in the Heron ending explained videos and again I can't really say most of miyazaki's other films would be viewed in such a way a somewhat big deal has been made over the English translation of the title but I have to say haven't watched the film it does actually make a lot of sense that they decide to call it the boy in the Heron and not how do you live in 2017 the film was announced as an adaptation of the 1937 novel how do you live and this actually resulted in a huge amount of renewed interest in that book because of the announcement I'm sure some of those people will end up disappointed though because in almost no way is the film and adaptation of that novel and the title is really the only thing that they share which is probably exactly why they decided to not have it be given the same name as yoshino's book outside of Japan since that's just inviting confusion from people unaware of the novel or the film's history having it be called something else entirely makes sense to me especially when considering the full context of the film this is the only actual spoiler I'll give and it's a fairly innocuous one but at one point in the film The main character actually reads the novel how do you live and I can see why that might be a bit weird for people who thought it was going to be an actual adaptation of that book most adaptations don't feature the thing they're adapting within the adaptation itself furthermore a not small amount of shade has been given to the chosen English title The Boy in the Heron but again having watched the film and understanding its full context I actually did grow to like that title quite a bit there's a lot in the story that justifies it being called that and there's even a few provocative ideas that are expressed just from that being the title alone all the way until the actual final shot of the movie and hey maybe it's just me personally but I don't really like movie titles that are also full sentences feels weird broadly though miyazaki's how do you live is about what else death and he spends the film using the many tools at his disposal including his entire filmography to showcase the things he's been thinking about when it comes to his untimely demise not just his own death mind you but the death of those who mean the most to him the death of the world we're currently living in the fear of death the desire for death the very conceptual idea of death itself Miyazaki puts a lot on his shoulders in this film and it's a testament to his abilities as an animator to craft something that ultimately appears so Deft and Flawless while dealing with something so heavy this is Miyazaki Reckoning with his legacy even more so than he did in 2013's The Wind Rises and despite that film being a visually stunning cumulative Masterpiece made by the greatest animator currently living I always felt that the Wind Rises suffered from its commitment to be sort of an actual biopic that sense of realism or at least as much realism as Miyazaki would allow ended up putting a limiter on his greatest strength his endless Wellspring of creativity boring normal reality is just too small to fit in all that Miyazaki wants to create and thank God the boy in the Heron fully and completely steps into the fantasy it gives the film the same quality all of his best films have in my opinion the sense that you could really see anything at any point and what you're gonna see is something totally brand new that spark of endless potential that you only get for movies that are truly audacious truly special truly memorable I know the boy in the Heron has been very pointedly released with virtually no advertising to give everyone the chance to go into it with fresh eyes but speaking from someone who has seen the film and who didn't see the one minute trailer released by G kids before I can say that it really doesn't spoil anything in fact I think it's actually a pretty good trailer that honors the commitment to give people no pre-existing expectations and also effectively translates the overall mood and tone of the film there's something so much darker and confrontational about this movie than anything else Miyazaki has made before and it paves the way for some incredible juxtaposition once he falls back into the wholesome optimism for what she's known for had any other person made this film it would be heralded as an industry-shaking Masterpiece and given how shitty the North American and Japanese animation industry has become both of them could definitely use it but because this is Miyazaki and because at least on the outset he's steeping this film in so many ideas he's explored already I feel some are not going to give in to the deeper exploration Miyazaki is asking from his audience this time around don't get me wrong it's still a Kids film the main character is 12 years old and that's who I would say is about the recommended audience for the film as well but there are elements of the boy in the Heron that are far more mature than some of his other movies not to the extent of the Wind Rises or some of his more overt political leanings like in porcar Rosso but definitely around the same level as something like Princess Mononoke like that film it's the only other Miyazaki movie that depicts violence with some amount of realism if you want a quick age guideline that's the best I can offer if your kid can handle seeing someone get decapitated with a bow and arrow then there's really nothing in this film that's inappropriate for them speaking personally especially because of my love for Spirited Away which I watched at a very young age I can say that if I watch this film at the time in my life when I first saw that film I would probably end up loving it and obsessing about it even more than I did Spirited Away for a film that keeps you at a distance for so long I found myself having such an emotional reaction to one of its slightest moments in the Final Act and I can't imagine anyone who's been on board the Miyazaki cat bus for this long isn't gonna find something in this movie to cherish there's just so much that can be said about the boy in the Heron so much that I would love to talk about but sadly can't without spoiling it and honestly without watching it again to make sure I got everything so I should probably end this video here consider these comments just some of my initial impressions of the film if it wasn't obvious I loved it and let me be clear that unless hayo Miyazaki somehow makes another movie before the end of the year it's going to be my favorite one of 2023 and maybe even the entire decade the world of Animation is awful and films are by and large completely worthless everything that everyone is working towards doing in the entertainment industry is evil and vapid narcissistic and serves nothing more than to fill the coat pockets of some of the most wretched people who've ever existed in the history of the planet over the last few years after facing so many many many disappointments about the reality in which so many films are made and the purpose that they ultimately serve it can be very defeating to even try to care about art in the modern world at some point I know I lost that initial enthusiasm that enthusiasm I had when I was first discovering great films great films like Spirited Away there are very few movies now that give me that same spark of creativity that same passion for artistic expression that same desire to explore everything that was done to create an art piece and revel in it because its execution is so Monumental and life-changing that you just can't stop yourself from knowing everything about it Hayao Miyazaki was one of the very first filmmakers to ever give me that feeling and with the boy in the Heron he did it again I can't wait until everyone else gets to see it thank you for watching this video I hope you watch the next one too goodbye

Channel: Critical Positivity

Views: 6,576

Keywords: Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki, Miyazaki, Ghibli, Tiff, The Boy and The Heron, How Do You Live?, Spirited Away, The Wind Rises, 2D Animation, Anime

Id: Rm-r14GTBZI

Length: 13min 34sec (814 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 14 2023