"The Boy and the Heron" Film Thoughts

     

Language: Japanese/English

2023

Running time: 2hr 4min

From IMDb:

In the wake of his mother's death and his father's remarriage, a headstrong boy ventures into a dreamlike world shared by the living and the dead in search of his missing stepmother.

The Boy and the Heron (2023) - IMDb

Quote:

Noble Pelican:  "We did not choose this life..."

Thoughts:

I'm not going to lie.  The animation, especially that fire scene was FIYAH!  To be a Studio Ghibli artist....

But.  But the storyline.  This plot.  I-

This isn't my favorite Miyazaki film.  And I'm such a nerd.  Such a FAN of his work that I'm thinking maybe it's me... maybe I need to re-watch in Japanese.  Even though I had the subtitles on since it automatically was on the English speaking when it started.  I suspect I will watch it again before returning to the library but the story, so many threads, it felt all over the place, not really closing out but having something of an ending?  Maybe it's not complete because that new world is still being built, because Miyazaki, as I've come to understand that this is semi-autobiographical, is still with us and has not passed the baton on.

But when I think back to this film, the interaction of Mahito with the Noble Pelican, I felt in that little exchange, that here was the story...

I'm likely to rewatch this before I put this post up so if I do, there'll be an update below this...