The Boy and The Heron (aka - How Do You Live? 2023) Film Thoughts

The Boy and The Heron (aka 君たちはどう生きるか )(2023): Art exists as a means of not only offering flights of fancy. It serves as a means of processing beauty, grief, and horror in the service of inspiring young & old to spark worlds beyond the empires of the past.

When we delve into art, we inhabit other dimensions comprised of familiar notions, artifacts, and ghosts. And when it's all over, the most effective dives not only provide echoes of past sorrows, but leave pieces with us so that we never forget.

Film as liberation agent.

Miyazaki is hoping we all find creations that allow us this.

Barreling in like an enigmatic and personal post script to a legendary career, Hayao Miyazaki presents this uncompromising, haunted, and ultimately poetic muddle with The Boy and The Heron ,( aka - 君たちはどう生きるか)

I will not be surprised if this one slips some among lifelong fans as Heron is so clearly not interested in populist cinematic shapes. In a career replete with moments that wordlessly expresses encounters with great horror and grief in classics such as My Neighbor Totoro, Porco Rosso, and even the train car scene in Spirited Away. This is the chance to dive headlong into this contemplative space as everything in the film from the spaces to the lighting that convey that dusk is indeed here, and night not so far away. Together with numerous brilliant animators who have followed in the footsteps of Miyazaki, including Shinya Ohira, Atsuko Otani, and Hiromasa Yonebayashi, the strange, unpredictable universe of the film cannot help but cast a powerful spell, even when the larger focal point finds itself a little elusive save for perhaps the role of grief and longing as a spark for the young to not repeat the mistakes that have led to empires of old. I'm still chewing on it, and this is where I currently am..

And while it may not rank among his very best, few filmmakers in the world create moments of quiet that allow for pockets of audience emotions quite like him. There is simply no other voice in cinema of the fantastical like his right now. Something worth rejoicing in every time such work makes it to the finish line.

In a life's work, Heron feels like looking back, wondering if there's something of value to it all, and realizing that perhaps he doesn't have to worry so much.