The Boy & The Heron - Review

Rating: 4 out of 5

THE films of Hayao Mizayaki may be difficult to grasp in terms of meaning, yet they are undeniably beautiful and thought-provoking works of art. The Boy & The Heron, his latest and reportedly final offering, embodies all of those elements.

Inspired by Genzaburo Yoshino's 1937 novel, and known as How Do You Live? in its native Japan, the film is a flight of fantasy informed by loss and grief. It's both extremely personal and highly fantastical, allowing viewers to extract what they want from it while sweeping them off their feet with a series of lush visuals.

Opening with a tragedy, the film follows a young boy named Mahito, who is first seen running in vain to try and save his mother, after the hospital she is working at is fire-bombed in Tokyo during the Second World War. Consumed by guilt and grief, Mahito moves to an idyllic countryside mansion with his father a few years later, where his father aims to take residence with his new wife, his former sister-in-law.

For Mahito, adjusting to his new life is hard and he feels distanced, despite the best efforts of his new mother, and a coven of excitable grandmother-style helpers, to make him fit in.

Yet there are also strange happenings. A grey heron takes a liking to Mahito and, eventually, beckons him to join him on a quest to find his dead mother - whose whereabouts may be located somewhere within an old, dilapidated tower-style building that is rotting away on his new estate. It isn't long before Mahito is tempted into accepting, embarking on an other-worldly quest that owes more than a passing nod to the likes of Orpheus travelling into the Underworld [in Greek mythology], or even the Chronicles of Narnia, with its passage into a different realm populated by mystical creatures. 

Hell, there's even a hunt of The Wizard of Oz, given how so many of the people that Mahito meets bear uncanny resemblances to those he has left at home.

As ever with Mizayaki, however, the look and feel of the movie is distinctly his own - and that of the studio he founded, Ghibli, with its designs reflecting the artistry of masterpieces past, such as Spirited Away and How's Moving Castle (to name but two).

Indeed, it's in the visuals that the film allows you to lose yourself, with vast sequences enchanting on an epic scale - such as the sight of a shipwreck so overgrown with vegetation that it supports its own ecosystem, or puffy white floating creatures, known as warawara, who are destined to become children in another world if they can avoid being eaten en route by starving pelicans (scenes evocative of Chinese Kongming lanterns, or wish lanterns).

There is a sense of awe and wonder to such moments - yet all come with equal parts beauty and danger. Death is never far away, bringing with it a sense of loss to underpin the heartache that is so integral to Mahito's path.

Yet therein lies another of Mizayaki's powers: his ability to pull at the heart-strings and make his films feel personal, no matter how you interpret them.

In Mahito's journey, you feel his sense of longing for what he has lost, as well as his need to find meaning in life... and connection. It's what also helps to make the friendships and bonds he subsequently does feel so meaningful and worth rooting for, and the film's stakes so high and personal.

The end result is another stunning achievement in Mizayaki's vast legacy: a profound, poignant meditation on life, loss and legacy that is as bittersweet as it is beautiful. If, as suggested, The Boy & The Heron is this master filmmaker's final film, then it's a terrifically moving final bow.