I have said for a long time that one should not go see movies. One should go see directors. It is the director whose hand creates what we see on the screen.
One of the greatest directors is Hayao Miyazaki, who has made some of the greatest animated films. “Spirited Away,” “My Friend Totoro” and “Princess Mononoke” are among his best.
Declaring his desire to retire in 2013, he returns with the semi-autobiographical “The Boy and the Heron.” As a small boy, Miyazaki’s industrialist father moved his family from Tokyo during the bombings in World War II. This sparks the plotline of the film.
Mahito Maki is a boy whose mother died in a hospital fire during the Tokyo bombings. His father moved Mahito to the country. There, his father remarries Mahito’s aunt, Natsuko. As we see him attempt to adjust, there are clear signs of grief, sorrow and anger.
Mahito returned home dirty after getting beaten up at school. Before he arrived, he took a rock and hit himself in the head in an act of self-harm.
Just before he injured himself, a heron that lives on the pond near the home appeared. While Mahito was recovering from his wound, the heron revealed that his mother was alive and that Mahito was to go with the heron.
Around this time, his new stepmother, Natsuko, and his grand-great-uncle, who had built a tower on the estate, disappeared. The heron led Mahito to that tower, marking a massive shift in the plotline.
At this point, the story’s movement becomes more contemplative, as Mahito attempts to understand the loss of his life and the malice that caused it.
He then moves through an abnormal world where he finds beings that are precursors of humans, what I believe to be what would be thought to be human souls. These include a female sailor who helps him make his journey and a kingdom of overgrown parakeets with an aggressive king.
Miyazaki’s films deeply connect with children, but this is not just a child’s movie. There are thematic emphases here that are very adult. There are themes of grief, war and malice. But there is something more profound.
This is the contemplation of the end of life. It is looking backward over the expanse of living.
We see the souls of pre-born humans interacting with the dead. The worlds of reality and the unconscious collide into a pallet of color and fire.
There are no answers given—only the consideration of the whole.
I found something very Christian about this film. Mahito is offered to save the world. He knows he cannot do so by himself. There is something wrong within that would not allow his salvation to be valid.
In the Christian context, we learn that we cannot save the world or even ourselves. That is the work of Christ. It is our giving of ourselves to Christ that we find salvation.
Notably, the Japanese title of this movie is not “The Boy and the Heron,” but rather, “How Do You Live?” There is more than one way to answer that question. From the Christian perspective, we should be able to say with Paul, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Rated PG-13 for some violent content/bloody images and smoking.
Pastor of Temple Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. He is married and has two boys. His love is for movies, and he can be found in a theater most Fridays.
