The Boy and the Heron: After Spirited Away and Mononoke, Miyazaki’s new masterpiece!

Hayao Miyazaki, the master of Japanese animation, is finally back on the big screen after a 10-year absence! The director of “The Boy and the Heron” offers us a story full of melancholy and poetry, the secret of which only he has. The story introduces us to Mahito, an 11-year-old young boy.

After his mother disappears in a fire, he must leave Tokyo and live in the countryside in the village where he grew up. He settles with his father in an old manor located in a huge estate, where he meets a gray heron who slowly becomes his guide and helps him in his discoveries and questions, to understand the world around him and to solve the mysteries of life.

how will you live

The Boy and the Heron is loosely based on the novel And how will you live? By Genzaburo Yoshino, dated 1937. This is a book that his mother once gave to Hayao Miyazaki. It tells a coming-of-age story about a young boy’s emotional and philosophical development after the death of his father. “The Boy and the Heron” is the opposite, the hero loses his mother; A scene from the movie also shows Mahito discovering this artwork with a note from his mother saying “Raising Mahito”.

Furthermore, as in several of Miyazaki’s works, the plot oscillates between realism and dream. In “The Boy and the Heron” these two tendencies coexist. The beginning is very realistic: in the middle of the war, the bombing causes a huge fire, the hospital is on fire. New in Miyazaki”explains author Bernard Genin.

If Miyazaki begins his film like this, it’s no doubt for dramatic effect, perhaps as a salute to his late colleague Isao Takahata. “By challenging the tone of his masterpiece, Grave of the Fireflies“Bernard Genin analyzes.

The director of Spirited Away gives himself another big news: “For the first time, the modest Miyazaki, so cautious in interviews, admits to a hint of autobiography. In fact, we can think that, like all artists, he has become (consciously or not) two characters: the hero Mahito, the son. Who is desperately searching for his mother and uncle, the old wise man, who worries about the future of the world in search of an heir.”

A secret defense project

The film’s marketing strategy in Japan was surprising to say the least. No images from The Boy and the Heron have been revealed before its release on July 14, 2023, except for a mysterious poster. Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki explained this choice to Bungei Shunji magazine.

“Ghibli’s goal is to get people to come see our movies. So over the years, we’ve done things in different ways to attract audiences. But this time, we realized we didn’t need to do that. Doing the same thing over and over again. Eventually it gets boring again. So we wanted to Let’s do something different.”– said the producer.

However, at the opening of the Ghibli exhibition in Tokyo, Hayao Miyazaki began to express doubts about this strategy: “I wonder if he’ll be okay without the publicity. I’m starting to wonder… I’m worried, that’s all.”he confided.

The film’s reception at the Japanese box office must have reassured the Japanese filmmaker: The Boy and the Heron earned ¥1.83 billion in theaters in its opening weekend, the best start in the studio’s history in front of Howell’s moving palace. and its ¥1.48 billion in its first weekend of 2004 release. After 2 weeks of operation, the work had a little over 3 million downloads and brought in 4.69 billion yen.

Note that this work is undoubtedly the most expensive from Studio Ghibli, or even from Japanese cinema in general according to producer Toshio Suzuki. “I think we spent more money making The Boy and the Heron than probably any other movie made in Japan.”He explained in the program Hiroyuki no Ikisakimitei on YouTube.

The latter previously confided that in 2014 director Isao Takahata’s “The Tale of Princess Kaguya” was considered the most expensive film of Studio Ghibli. Its budget was ¥5.15 billion (€32.4 million).

magical music

Joe Hisaishi, who wrote the music for all of Hayao Miyazaki’s films except his first film, The Castle of Cagliostro, composed the soundtrack for The Boy and the Heron.