The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki, 2023) (Patreon)

All art criticism is unavoidably subjective. And in some ways, I wish that weren't the case. Like anyone who strives to be a critic, I have certain criteria for what I think an effective film should do. And if I stick to those, I can form a fairly compelling argument either in favor or against a particular film. It's when those niggling feelings get in the way -- intangibles like personal taste or nostalgia or resonance with one's personal history -- that things get rough. Interesting, but rough.

The Zone of Interest is a good recent example. My judgment of the film is mixed, because the skill and mastery it represents, the degree to which Glazer and company did exactly what they set out to do, is undeniable. And sure, I have formal and thematic problems with it, and I tried to explicate those. But at a certain point, I felt like my verdict on it needed to account for the fact that I actively resented the film, that I thought its entire project was callow and artistically self-serving. So I give it a fairly ambivalent thumbs-down.

On the other side of this conundrum we have The Boy and the Heron. As many folks have already pointed out, Miyazaki's narrative thread is nonexistent. There is no continuity from moment to moment, and the film feels very much like Miyazaki made it up as he went along, forgetting to elaborate on many if not most of the ideas and threads he introduced. On a macro-level, The Boy and the Heron makes a certain kind of sense. Even when Mahito (Soma Santoki) enters the bizarre world of the enchanted tower, we see the blithely brutal parakeets and the fixation on motherhood as a cult. Just as much as the real-world images of batallions and the father's factory producing airplane fusillade parts, the mystical world expresses Miyazaki's own memories and trauma regarding World War II, specifically how his love for his country is complicated with the recognition that Japan's role in the war, along with the nation's unswerving devotion to the emperor, are indefensible.

Still, there are so many aspects of The Boy and the Heron that make no sense. Why exactly does Mahito decide that his father's new girlfriend, his aunt Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura) can in fact be his new mother? He loves her enough to risk his life trying to rescue her, and we are meant to just take this at face value, regardless of the lack of emotional development. What exactly is the role of Kiriko (Ko Shibasaki), the pirate-looking guy who brings Mahito to his house? What became of the warawara (pictured above), who we are told are new souls leaving to be born? Was Mahito's mother actually dead, and the Tower-World is a kind a alternate universe we usually think of as heaven? The doors to the past? The grand-uncle / Tower Master (Shōhei Hino) and his magic blocks?

Calling The Boy and the Heron "dreamlike" is not inaccurate, since dreams are one place where images and concepts bubble up and then recede, never revealing their full meaning. But it also seems like a cop-out, since Miyazaki makes a distinction between the real world of wartime Japan and the otherscape of the Tower, and the narrative facts regarding Boy and the Heron's real world are only slightly less confusing than those of the fantasy realm. And while this may seem like nitpicking, I've usually found that when a non-English film has its title changed, the original title offers some additional clue regarding the film's thematic intent. But the belated gift from Mahito's mother, the book entitled How Do You Live? (the film's literal Japanese title), is just as disconnected as everything else.

So, why did I like The Boy and the Heron? Speaking on a purely subjective level, I was constantly intrigued by the film. The world Miyazaki created, discombobulated as it was, provided a fertile ground for primal emotions, especially fear, grief, and curiosity. I liked spending time with The Boy and the Heron, perhaps even more because it does feel confused and, in a way, valedictory. This is an old man's film, and it plays somewhere between an animated sketchpad filled with idea fragments, and a poetic evocation of impaired memory, someone with so many stories to tell, not enough time, and an inability to keep them all straight. The Boy and the Heron made me feel like a small child, my father at my bedside, spinning wild, extemporaneous tales as I drifted off to sleep.