The
twelfth film in my continuing analysis of The
Films of Hayao Miyazaki is the melancholic meditative
masterpiece, The
Boy and the Heron. A blistering elevation of the artform,
Miyazaki’s latest visual tapestry is a generationally expansive collaboration
that is contemplative of death, (social and self) destruction and the human dynasty.
While Miyazaki retreads some narratively foundational elements found in his
other semi-autobiographical work, he comes at the
material from the opposite direction, making the prepubescent protagonist his
personal proxy; even when most critics see the wearily old Uncle as his artistic
alternate. Regardless of the form of his fictional facsimile, Miyazaki’s
current, and perhaps final film, is a thoughtful treatise on the crisis and
value of legacy, from the greatest animation auteur of the 20th
century.
PLOT
In
World War II era Japan, Mahito Maki fails to rescue his mother from a hospital
fire after its bombed by the Allies. Once the War concludes, Mahito and his
father move to the country where his father takes a new wife…Mahito’s aunt (his
mother’s sister). Still grieving the loss of his mother, Mahito is stunned into
virtual silence over these events. But
when a mysterious Heron beckons him into the Underworld to “save his mother.”,
Mahito cannot resist the pull of a (perceived) redemptive adventure. However,
what sets Mahito’s motivations at the beginning of this journey, quickly changes
as the Heron is found to be untrustworthy. Overseen by an enigmatic elderly man,
Mahito ventures deeper into this otherworld that is full of plundering parakeets,
a Firestarter, and soul consuming pelicans. Amidst the journey’s peril, he soon
realizes that the parabolic arc of life is unpredictable; felled by many
difficult and nigh impossible choices.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Considering
that Miyazaki just celebrated his 83rd birthday on Jan 5th,
2024, it is difficult to discuss the historical context of The Boy and the
Heron without also looking at this film as his magnum opus. Granted, given
how many times Miyazaki likes to publicly retire[1], and then recant those
statements, it is likely that Miyazaki will be working on “something” until his
untimely death.[2]
Still, this is most likely his final completed film. Thus, indicative of that,
some retrospective on Ghibli is also required.
Much of the heavy lifting
of that studio reflection was completed by a duology of documentaries: The
Kingdom of Dreams and Madness (2014), cataloging the production of his previous
“last” film: The
Wind Rises, and Never-Ending Man:
Hayao Miyazaki (2018) both of which fail to disentangle Miyazaki from
Ghibli himself, often making them one in the same. It is important to question
then, what is Ghibli without Miyazaki? Serendipitously, Miyazaki answered this
very question, in the first documentary saying: “I know what will happen…It
will end.” In the documentary, this quote is juxtaposed with Miyazaki sitting
on a picnic style park bench outside of Ghibli studios while also admiring a
cat, and looking out at the beauty of the day he is experiencing. There is no
malice, regret, or animosity in that statement. Instead, it has an intimation
of reserved contentment. Miyazaki has never been one to get nostalgically
mournful over the loss of the studio, which shuttered its doors several times in
between Miyazaki’s projects. Even though these periods were eventually labeled
a “hiatus”, at the time of each closure, it was unclear if the studio would
ever continue. The focal point of
Miyazaki’s prideful ambition was always the ability to create and maintain his
artistic vision over the solvency and success of the company. Unfortunately,
when that vision is threatened, as it was during the production of The Boy
and the Heron, Miyazaki’s choices and the direction of the company opened
himself up to claims of hypocrisy.
Production
Miyazaki
has always been a
proponent of the theatrical experience, believing that his, and
all of the Ghibli films should be released and seen in theaters, or exclusively
released on high quality physical media for home viewing in the best possible
format. This pretentious position won him
(and Ghibli) the praise of film geeks, and scholars as one of the last bastions
of cinematic artistry. To be clear, irrespective
of the dramatic discourse surrounding this subject, there is sufficiently
well documented evidence that when you have physical media,
the quality of the video is better (lack of compression and a non-reliance on
Internet speed) and you actually physically own a copy of the film; unlike with
streaming where you only pay for access ( Arditi 2021, 2023).
Additionally,
Miyazaki has never been interested in expanding the Ghibli brand; including merchandising
nor the outright licensing of Ghibli characters to inundate the market for the
purposes of profit. This was what had always separated Ghibli from what some
would call their western equivalent in Disney. Disney was the purveyor of the maximalist
ubiquity of a profit driven monoculture that they themselves control; and
Ghibli was a minimalist, at cost artisan studio that was run more like a
nonprofit; with most of its revenue going back into the company for future
projects. Unfortunately, in this capitalist
system, the Ghibli model was only sustainable if budgets were kept low, and
deadlines were met. The moment that one or both conditions changed, then their artistic
morality would be in danger of being compromised.
Miyazaki first began
working on what would eventually become The Boy and the Heron in 2016
before the film was officially greenlit. A year later, when the project was
announced, the loose description was that it was going to be a adaptation of
the book “How
do you Live?” The only other information given to the
public was a devastating admission of motivation by Miyazaki, stating that the film
was being made for his grandson because: “Grandpa
is going into the next world soon, but he’s leaving behind this film.” And
everyone wept. Beyond these tidbits, little was known about the film for years.
Soon, those close to Miyazaki and others at Ghibli were worried the film was
never going to be finished. This is because, in the intervening years, Miyazaki
was grieving the death of fellow legendary animation director, Isao Takahata
whom he had used as a model for Grand Uncle in his new film, and due to
Miyazaki’s aging, his process was becoming more meticulously slow. Whereas
production on previous Miyazaki films would yield 7-10 minutes of finished film
per month, on The Boy and the Heron, Miyazaki was averaging 1 minute per
month; only completing about 15% of the final film by winter 2019.
The
Odyssean production eventually became so protracted that its budget began to balloon
to the point that it set the record for the
most expensive film Japan has ever created, and threatened
the viability of the studio. Therefore, Miyazaki and famed Ghibli producer and
collaborator, Toshiro Suzuki were at a crossroads. Do they risk not finishing
the film that may very well be Miyazaki’s last? Or, do they reluctantly
open another revenue stream (pun intended) that they were previously
recalcitrant to on morally artistic grounds? Eventually, Suzuki
and Ghibli capitulated to a streaming deal with (then named) HBOMAX and
began the development of a Ghibli theme park in 2017. Both
decisions were fueled by a desire to finish this most recent project.
The drastic
reversal of the HBOMAX deal in 2020 after doubling down on their original position
a scant year prior, caused Miyazaki, Suzuki and Ghibli to be exposed to public
blowback. A company that often prides itself as being principled over profit was
now open to attacks of character, and even greater comparisons to Disney. Yet, in the wake of this decision, none of
that came to pass. Why? Because consumers were gaining greater access to a
thing that they love (and perhaps feel entitled to), profit was being made for Warner
Media (parent company of HBOMAX now just MAX) in the form of new subscribers,
and Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli got money to put back into current and future projects.
Cynically, a common response from many people to the understanding that there
is no ethical consumption under capitalism is that there should be no morality
or ethics in the pursuit of profit.
These are not the same. Understanding
the unethical process of an economic system does not imply a tacit and blanket
support for immoral practices in the accumulation of wealth; especially around
labor (Just look at 2023’s “Hot Labor Summer”). Additionally, recognition of an
individual’s participation in the unethical systems as a necessary requirement
for survival does not absolve them from attempting to minimize the amount or type
of participation in which they engage. By accepting this streaming deal, Ghibli
is not slouching toward (becoming) Disney. Suzuki had to (basically) trick
Miyazaki into agreeing to it and played
on his ignorance in order to succeed. Also, this decision
was not taken lightly as it often is with the nebulous greed of Western
Corporate Executives. It was a decision based on a desire to complete a project
and expand the distribution of already made films. Therefore, the story of how
Ghibli films went to streaming illustrates that when capitalism forces you into
“a Devil’s Bargain” of compromised morality, do so for a benevolent reason
without giving more of yourself than is necessary. With funding secured, the next
step for the production team was to increase the pace of production.
To speed up production,
Miyazaki began to embrace a more traditional animation director role. Suzuki
had convinced him to take on a more supervisory position on the production in its
later stages. To make Miyazaki more comfortable with this transition, Suzuki
brought in former Ghibli animators who themselves have gone on to become well-known
animation directors in Japan. The most
famous was Takashi Honda of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Mobile Suit Gundam
fame, who took over storyboards for some of the film’s major sequences. While
this is common in animation, this approach has also been used in live action. If
an aging director wants to make a film, as a part of the deal, major studios
may require an additional director to be on set in case the director dies or is
incapacitated while filming. Famously, Paul Thomas Anderson was hired to be “a
backup director” for Robert Altman on A Prairie Home Companion, while
Coppola, Lucas and Spielberg, integral to the creation of Akira Kurosawa’s
final two Chambara
Films: Kagemusha
and Ran; gave producers comfort
by also being on set. However, unlike other directors, Miyazaki had the
privilege of former workers coming back to help him finish (what could be) his
final film. This was a chance for many of these animators to give back to the
master on which they cut their teeth. As
Calligrapher Tamio Yoshida once said, “To Surpass the Master, Repays the Debt.”
As of this writing, the
dozenth film in Miyazaki’s oeuvre is the most successful film in Japan and topped
the US box office in its first week of release; making a current total of $149
Million in international and domestic box office receipts. This was after a minimal to nearly nonexistent
marketing campaign. The reason being that
the cultural capital of Studio Ghibli elevated by the potential of it being
Miyazaki’s last, basically sells the film. Rather than a blitzkrieg of ads, Suzuki
simply released a single vague white poster. On the poster, was a picture of a
Heron drawn in the style of calligraphy with the name of the film above it. He
then took the money he would have spent on marketing and put it back into the
film. This confident strategy even led the sales of the book “How Do I live?”
to increase, as people were searching for clues about the film’s plot by
reading it. This became such
an issue that Suzuki had the make a statement to the press that
the association between the film and the book was minimal. Furthermore, the film has also been making
the festival circuit and picking up pending award nominations, including from
the Annie Awards and BAFTAs; to winning awards outright from Major US regional
Critics associations including New York and Chicago. The film is expected to at
least get nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 2024 Oscars, but also
could be in contention for Best Film, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Director,
and Best Score for longtime collaborator Joe Hisaishi beautiful orchestral melody.
SOCIAL ANALYSIS
As
with many directors, Miyazaki’s work always comes back to a lot of the same central
themes across his filmography, such as: Feminism,
Environmentalism,
Anti-War
massaging, and Work
and Identity. With The Boy and The Heron,
Miyazaki additionally grapples with loss, legacy and Masculinity as if he is retrospectively
contemplating the value of his own existence, his place in culture through this
film.[3]
Loss,
Death, and Grief
The beginning of The
Boy and the Heron, opens like a nightmare. Mahito is awoken by the firebombing
of the hospital where his mother is a patient. The sequence of him running to
help put out the flames is purposefully drawn with few clear lines, blurring
the images of the fire, the crowd, and Mahito, to give the audience the sense
of discombobulated panic someone feels when they experience a trauma inducing
event. This is something that will stick with Mahito. He will internalize these
events as failure, no matter how vain his efforts. During this sequence,
Miyazaki includes a shot of Mahito going back to his house to get “properly”
dressed. This is to emphasize both the banality of tragedy, that even though
your life is falling apart, you still have to put on clothes (or eat, or go to work,
care for children etc.) and the way that those moments stick with you. Mahito
will always wonder, regardless of its rationality or truth, if he had not taken
the extra time to put on his pants, would he have been able to save his mother?
Of course, he couldn’t, but our brains, especially when we are young, tend to
be bullies, convincing us of heroic delusions of grandeur.
The loss of his mother is
the driving motivational force for Mahito throughout the film. The Heron taunts
Mahito using the lure of saving his mother, to get him to follow The Heron into
the Underworld. Even when the ruse is revealed, Mahito elects to find his
Stepmother, herself mysteriously detained, making her into his birth mother’s
proxy. If he can save her, then, in his own eyes, he will be redeemed for not
being able to save his first mother at the hospital. The guilt will be
assuaged. This belief drives Mahito.
Travis Herchi’s (1969)
social bond theory[4]
discusses that the belief in social laws, and the legitimacy of their
enforcement, is an essential mechanism for the continued reproduction of the
current social order. Durkheim (2001) focuses on the importance of religious
belief; stating that belief itself needs people in order to exist.
Additionally, many of us incorrectly identify the source for feelings of
elation and spiritual connection as being located in a higher power, or a
supreme being, whereas it is more likely generated by various social groups.
Durkheim (2001) calls this phenomenon “collective effervescence through
emotional contagion.” This is the process by which individuals within a small
group setting become collectively influenced by the emotions and moods of the
people around them. For some, this collective effervescence makes them feel
better, transforming their dower mood into one that is more delightful. With
others, their mood can be so powerfully negative, that it can act like a virus sapping
the joy from everyone around them. This is the state of Mahito at the beginning
of the film, infecting others with his rage and pain, getting into fights and
inflicting self-harm. Yet, Durkheim (2001) also points out that while belief is
important to maintain/retain the power of religion and motivate people into
social action the way it does Mahito; the content of that belief is rather
moot. It doesn’t matter what you believe, what matters is that you
believe. The faith that is generated is
not merely an individual thing, it is based upon our learning, and the sharing
of experiences within society.
Mahito’s faith is in his
determination to save his mother, believing he can do it himself. Nevertheless,
it is the people around him, and his own family, that support him, build him
up, and help him on his journey that allows him to be successful. Durkheim (2001) says plainly that we create
stories about Gods. We define what is sacred, and build communities around the
things that we believe, and have faith in. It is us, the group, that has power;
not anything beyond that. One of the main functions of religion as a social institution
is that it provides us with answers about mortality (What will happen when we
die?) and morality (How Should We Live?). Rather than these answers
be handed to him, Mahito reads a book, and goes on a spiritual adventure rife
with metaphors about what it is like to live, have generational legacy, and love.
He is far more adult at the end of the film than he is at the beginning; more
ready to live the life in front of him, with a greater sense of purpose and focus.
Subcultures as Cults
Paradoxically, even those
of us that do not hold religious beliefs, nor faith in anything spiritual, tend
to satisfy the same organizational and institutional needs through our
participation in social groups. For some, this might be the group you have a
weekly pick-up basketball game with, or a community theater troupe. But in the
context of Miyazaki, the anime fan subculture is the best example. Many social group subcultures take on and
embody various aspects of religion. They create sacred text and deify
individuals as their gods, they have strict hierarchical rules and opinions
that are designed to be exclusionary and have unique dress codes. All these
aspects of religion are satisfied by the anime fan subculture. Whatever show or
film someone is into, becomes the sacred text, its creator is exalted and
venerated as a paragon, communities validate and invalidate opinions as a way
to justify the inclusion and exclusion of members and non-members to their
group (Think about the “Umm actually…” section of fandoms) and cosplaying becomes
the unique dress code. The anime fan subculture has religious overtones, but
because it does not have access to power to legitimate its identity within the
already establish social structure; they operate more like a cult…as all
fandoms do. The irony of this is when faced with his own deification and the
religious devotion with which both fans and animator prostrate at his feet,
Miyazaki rejected them; iconically stating that “Anime was a mistake. It’s
nothing but Trash.” What do we mere mortals do when our manufactured gods
reject us so completely?
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The Precarity of Birth
and Death: WaraWara and the Pelicans
Weber (1956) defines
spirits as “neither soul, demon or god, but something indeterminate, material
yet invisible, nonpersonal and yet somehow endowed with volition.” (3) Western
cultures tend to apply and imbue that sense of volition from an individual
perspective. Western religions believe that an individual soul is a unique
personality that exists prior to any kind of social molding through the society
that they are born into. Contradictorily, Eastern cultures often see this sense
of volition as connected to groups and individuals before them. There is a
greater valuation of ancestry among Eastern cultures that typically manifests
itself through the concept of filial piety. This is the idea that individual
actions reflect on the entire family; currently, and throughout generations.
Therefore, shame and glory are very much a collectivist concept in Eastern
societies rather than an individual one. These juxtaposed ideas of spirits are
embodied in the film by the entanglement of the WaraWara, and the Pelicans.
As Mahito enters the
spirit world he encounters a younger version of one of his old maids, Kiriko.
She tells him that most of the people in this place are dead; except for the
WaraWara, primordial souls that are floating to the real world to be born. As
the ritual commences and the WaraWara begin to ascend into their “birth” in the
real world, a flock of pelicans swoop in and begins to devour the WaraWara
whole. Mahito, Kiriko and Lady Hemi succeed in igniting the pelicans and
driving the rest away. Later, when confronting one of the pelicans that are
dying, Mahito asks why they were eating souls of those yet to be (re)born? The
pelican simply stated that they were brought there by The Creator for that very
purpose. Since Mahito’s raging against death and therefore fixated on the
saving/reviving of his mother in this moment, he does not understand the
inextricable link between life and death that the WaraWara and the pelicans
represent.
The symbiosis of the
WaraWara and the Pelicans moves beyond just a simple understanding of an
environmental sense of “balance” The circle of life. Miyazaki leaves the ritual
vague enough that for it to be used as a narrative allegory for a variety of
social issues such as overpopulation, birth control, and the systemization of
bureaucratized death.
If the tiny chibi-like WaraWara are souls in
the spirit world, waiting to be (re)born, the pelicans are necessary to curb
the very real threat to overpopulation. Ostensibly, the pelicans act as a
literal form of birth control…controlling new souls from being born into the
real world for the purpose of resource management. What Mahito fails to see
until his actual conversation with a pelican is that they are a part of an
integrated system attempts to organize the process of life, death, and
rebirth. Consider the bureaucracy of
death, the mechanisms, processes, and profit that is made off death. From
granting the job security of coroners, to grief counselors and morticians,
death is a lucrative business (everyone dies, so there always a demand for jobs
that eliminate the endless surplus of the dead). It is the order and
monetization of the end of life. In Miyazaki’s world, the pelicans are just janitors.
As
indicated in previous films, Miyazaki is also acutely aware of the earth’s
finite resources, and the earth’s ability to sustain a certain amount of people
before its depletion and eventual destruction. Yet, consistently, our
enculturated and internalized desires for children rarely consider the
environment. This is because the cultural value of the next generation is based
on ideals of personal and familial legacy and not the longevity of the planet.
For many, regardless of culture or context, having children is the quickest and
easiest way to achieve validation and a sense of purpose; the satisfaction of
which supersedes our valuation of earth’s sustainability. Additionally, because
we do not have equal distribution of agricultural assets, wealthy and more
powerful countries obtain and consume more than their fair share of resources. The
United States only accounts for less than 5% of Global population but consumes
20-30% of all global resources while producing 50% of all global waste. Therefore, the wealth and status of a country
also determines their level of unequal distribution of resources, which in turn
creates a culture around that amount of resource consumption cultivating
a since of entitlement to that level of access. Cultural norms, rituals and
interactions are based around this pattern of unsustainable practices, thereby
making overconsumption seem necessary. Under these conditions, wealthier,
environmentally rich countries (rich in access, not geography) have an easier
life than those that don’t, in part because of their higher resource
consumption, and because their wealth shields them from the effects of
environmental destruction/depletion better than poorer (usually non-white)
countries.
Masculinity and a Sense of Colonialism
The correlation
between masculinity and capitalism has been well documented. Historically, in
many western societies this relationship is interdependent. The extent to which
men can achieve and amass power is directly caused by the expansion of
capitalism. Similarly, economic power is then perceived as a masculine trait causing
sexist laws, rules, and regulations to be enacted, ultimately defining capitalist
economic success as being exclusively achievable by men. The perfect progeny of
this unholy union is colonialism.
Colonialism
can be defined as the process by which an indigenous people are conquered
(usually by a foreign invading force) followed by the creation of an
organization controlled by members of the conquering polity and the
establishment of rule over the conquered territory and population (Steinmetz
2014).[5] Colonialism is the
cancerous consumptive crawl of capitalism coupled with the aggressive menagerie
of masculinity with a serving of white supremacy.
The interlocking
mechanisms of race, class and gender that make colonialism possible also allow
it to be polymorphic. The force of colonialism was at first the force of violence,
when that was met with resistance, the process pivoted, reinvented itself to
lean heavier on its capitalist roots and its implication of progress. As
colonialism masks itself as advanced technology, many native societies do not
see how culture comes with it. Therefore, the resulting cultural diffusion
through the process of global trade, and the expansion of the global economy is
not equal. Instead, this is a subtle form of cultural imperialism.
Mary Fraser (2023), like
George Romero before her, analogizes white male colonialist global capitalism as
being cannibalistic. Capitalism is an ouroboros, people can not generate enough
through paid work to support themselves and under capitalism everyone is a
resource that gets used. When societies historically restrict access to
economic participation due to sexist racist and ableist bigotry, the eventual
granting of that access can seem like liberation for a time…because participation
in capitalism is a necessity for survival. But that access, framed as liberty,
masks the ritualized objectification of being economically oppressed. Therefore,
part of the fight for justice, whether for racial, gender, sexual, or disabled freedom
is fighting for their right to be exploited under capitalism. This is not the
type of hegemony that fosters revolution, it is the type of hegemony that eventually
leads to the erosion of facts, science, reason, and civility as what befalls The
Parakeet King and his Monarchy in the film.
Late in the film,
Mahito’s search for his aunt/stepmom leads him to uncover an underground
society of Parakeets. Like the Pelican’s, they were originally brought to this
world by his Grand Uncle, The Creator, as a patch work solution to avert a
potential catastrophe. Since then, the Parakeets have developed into humanoid
forms, created a structured dictatorial political and social order, and gained
a penchant for the taste of human flesh, attempting to eat Mahito and Lady Hemi
when they encountered them. It is also
the actions of The Parakeet King, his inept staking of the blocks, that
ultimately causes The Creator’s world to crumble.
The hubris of The
Parakeet King can be allegorical to Western Societies relationship with God. History
has given us a plethora of examples of politically powerful men playing God.
Whether that be the judgement and execution of life and death sentences, the
more mundane erection of city skylines, cathedrals, and
statues, to the more complicated manufactured imbroglio between religion and
capitalism, all point to a desired deification of humanity…(mostly) by and for
men. Similarly, The Parakeet King exhibits many masculine traits, chief among
them being self-determination to the point of an over-inflated sense of
self-importance. This is coupled with a willingness to use violence as a
mechanism of validation that becomes inevitably virulent; dooming the world to
justify their own existence.
The Parakeet King is only Miyazaki’s latest character to be a cautionary tale for the dangers of white masculine capitalist colonialism. From the Count of Cagliostro to No Face in the Bathhouse, Miyazaki has always been critical of capitalism. Most of his characters that support capitalism either are destroyed, disillusioned or die, while his protagonists embrace the hospitality of socialism and emotional growth. The glaringly obvious exception to this statement is Kiki, of Kiki’s Delivery Service, who is both an entrepreneur (saw a hole in the market that she could fill) and a small business owner. However, her predilection for profit mirrors that of Miyazaki and Ghibli themselves. For Kiki, profit is not an ethos, it is the means of subsistence and a mechanism for creative expression.
Legacy
The enmity we have with
death correlates with our enculturated validation of masculinity and the
development of patriarchy to heavily weight the importance of legacy. Our
valuing of self-worth primarily through the prism of longevity, ostensibly
seeking immortality, has placed an overabundant focus on reproduction. For
many, sex and reproduction are the cheapest and easiest way to impact the world
through your genealogy. We have used the
creation of children to get laws passed, encapsulate ideas about gender, and to
maintain social control; all through subtle or direct threats to personal
legacy.
In this context, The
Boy and the Heron forces us to grapple with the passing of generations,
what is accepted, what is left behind, and what is changed. In the
conversations between Mahito and his Grand Uncle, Miyazaki challenges the
audience to reconcile our culturally incongruous ideas about legacy by posing
two questions: What is the responsibility one generation has to the next? and What
happens when the next generation is resentful and does not want to continue the
previous generation’s work, allowing it to die?
The first question and conversation reveal,
much like the context suggests above, that the existence of new or next
generations are not about them at all; instead, it is about the people they are
born to. New generations are a motivating force for life and society to exist.
They maintain the social order by providing personal investment and stakes in their
parent’s generation that needs a reason to keep living and working regardless
of its diminished sense of fulfilment.
The second question and conversation
deconstruct the social and cultural “guard rails” that our society employs to
maintain the status quo. One of the
fundamental generational “guard rails” is the process of socialization; the
social learning of rules, regulations, norms, and values of our society from
one generation to another. Embedded in these rules, regulations, norms, and
values are generational messages about culture that, much like the children
themselves, get reproduced. This not
only is a maintenance of the social order, but a solidification of generational
legacy. This normalization manifests itself in the form of logical fallacies
(“That’s How it’s always been done.”) and results in an inherited earth that is
on the brink of collapse (climate change, War, Genocide, and crumbling social
Institutions). Therefore, it is obvious
that the children of today’s adults would be resentful because of the generational
debt they are being saddled with. However, even as Mahito rejects his Grand
Uncle’s pleas, leaving the world that was created to be demolished, as Mahito leaves,
he still picks up some of the pieces to build something himself. In this,
Miyazaki illustrates that even if there is a generational blight through the
rejection of norms, the next generation is still going to have to build
something out of the rubble.
CONCLUSION
The
Boy and the Heron is a masterpiece. While this descriptor is
both common and apt when writing about any Miyazaki film, the way this film
encapsulates, themes, art styles, character tropes of his other previous films,
as well as amalgamating the legacy of Ghibli animators by having former
employees come back to help finish the project, this film is the perfect
representation of Miyazaki and a distillation of his impact on animation. I first began this series when this film was
announced in 2018. Regardless of how many times he has attempted to retire,
this is the first time I’ve felt that this could be his final film. If this is
the last film of Miyazaki, and the end of Studio Ghibli itself, it is the
highest of notes that crescendos into perpetual oblivion.
REFERENCES
Arditi,
David 2021. Streaming Culture: Subscription Platforms and the Unending
Consumption of Culture United Kingdom: Emerald Publishing
_____2023.
Digital Feudalism: Creators Credit, Consumption and Capitalism United
Kingdom: Emerald Publishing
Durkheim,
Emile 2001. The Elementary Forms of
Religious Life New York: Oxford University Press.
Fraser,
Nancy 2023. Cannibal Capitalism: How our System is Devouring
Democracy, Care, and the Planet – and What We Can Do About It. New York:
Verso Books
Hirschi,
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[1]
For the record, I think this is ingenious process of stress reduction. It seems
that Miyazaki understood that if he “retires” he does not have pressure to
answer questions about “his next film” or “what he is working on now” until he
is ready to publicly announce his next project.
[2]
The death of an artist of Miyazaki’s magnitude and caliber is such a loss it
will always seem inappropriate at any age.
[3]
Ironically, I do not thing that Miyazaki really thinks about his place in
history of culture, outside of the stories that he tells. I truly believe that
he just wants to be able to translate what is in his head rendering it into a two-dimensional
animated moving image
