PG-13 for a lot of blood and upsetting imagery in context that this is an animated movie about a child. There's some self-harm, not in a suicidal context, but rather in the context of the protagonist hurting himself so he wouldn't have to return to a school. There's some messed up stuff in it that necessitates the PG-13 rating. I'd be nervous to show this to my younger kids. Also, the protagonist's mother dies in a fire, inspiring haunting imagery.
DIRECTOR: Hayao Miyazaki I got a field trip for my film class! It happened! Yay! The last time I was able to get a film class field trip was La La Land, so I've been trying to recapture that magic for years. The great part is that I actually teach Miyazaki when we get to the Japan unit, so this is super-cool that they can all see a Miyazaki at the same time and form opinions on it. Coupled with the fact that it is nominated for an Academy Award, I'm sitting pretty here with the knowledge that I'm a pretty great teacher. But can you imagine? I'm a teacher who blind took 21 students to go see a very weird Miyazaki film. Miyazaki is always a little weird. But I can classify his movies into approachable weird and buckle-up weird. The Boy and the Heron might be one of his more "buckle-up weird" movies ever. I'm not saying that as a bad thing, but it's that feeling of sharing something very personal with someone who might not like it. That was me, the entire movie. I know that some of my students probably absolutely hated it. I mean, I'm going to find out when we meet for class today. They'll be writing a blog showing off their writing skills when it comes to this movie over the weekend, so you can follow that here. That might be a perfect assignment considering that there is so much to unpack from this movie. Now, I wonder if any of them will try stealing what I'm about to write because my job is to unpack The Boy and the Heron right here. I think this is a movie for people who have experienced loss at a young age. I've pointed out on the blog before that I just wrote a novel. I lost my father when I was 12 and a lot of my book deals with the loss of a parent. My book is light fantasy (in the sense that I didn't want to explain crazy random happenstance of coincidence, so I put fantasy elements in the book). The Boy and the Heron embraces the heck out of fantasy. It's his Alice in Wonderland (which also might be Spirited Away). My father died in October. In November, I was at my godmother's house. We weren't close, but we were there for a Christmas party. On her fake tree, she had fake candles for her Christmas tree lights. I remember as the party drew on, I refused to leave. Any fun event, I refused to go to because, in my mind, I had told myself a story. I told myself that if I looked at a single flickering light and didn't take my eyes off of it, I would have my dad back. I stared at that light for hours. Eventually, my mom took me home and I had to take my eyes off of that candle. My father wasn't there. But for a few hours, I had control over the uncontrollable. My coping mechanism was to try and insert myself into the grand plans of death and undo it. A lot of The Boy and the Heron feels like me and the candle. There's a very real chance that, like Alice in Wonderland, this strange world is both real and fictional. You can read Alice in Wonderland as a fantasy adventure where Alice really went and met the Queen of Hearts, the White Rabbit, and the Mad Hatter. Or you can just view it as the effects of a dream (or a drug trip) and Alice just over-invested in it. The same is true for The Wizard of Oz. Heck, there's probably a whole subgenre of "Is this fantasy world real or a dream?" Honestly, I was watching The Boy and the Heron as a mix --finally! --of Pan's Labyrinth and Labyrinth. Honestly, I think The Boy and the Heron is the way that this boy processes trauma and it all starts with the rock to the head. The rock to the head is upsetting. I mean, it's animated blood, but there's a lot of it and it seemingly comes out of nowhere. But the rock to the head is a choice. Up to this point, everything in the movie is fairly grounded. There are elements of oddness. The boy's attempt to save his mother and he launches himself towards the burning hospital has streaks and elements of heightened reality, but that feels more about the absurdness of a chaotic moment. He thinks he sees haunting things as he sneaks out at night. The duality of Hisako and Natsuko as sisters is a slap in the face to Mahito is confusing to him. There's something otherworldly about the entire situation. But this is all in the realm of reality, which is starkly shown compared to the absurdity of the tower. Much of the film before the head injury foreshadows elements that take priority in the otherworld where Hisako and Natsuko are. The heron that swoops down and glides past him is the center character, serving as both antagonist and unwilling ally. The duality of that bird, by the way, probably comes from the hostile dive bombing that welcomed him to Natsuko's home while simultaneously acknowledging the noble stance that the heron takes outside of his window. He also is obsessed with the irrational backwards crawl. When he feels he's going to be caught staying up late, he crawls backwards. Similarly, when he is escaping the graveyard, he's warned clearly that he must not look backwards or else it wouldn't work. I love the idea that Mahito subconsciously chooses to put himself through an adventure so he can process the traumatizing events that haunt his dream. He seems like the shell of a boy, doing his due process in the shadow of a war that needs him to stay strong. While the rock to the head was intended to allow him to skip school, stressing how dangerous the school is for him (a scuffle could lead to a gory head injury in Mahito's logic), it is almost a choice to withdraw from social conventions. The movie shifts so hard between reality and fantasy. I have to tell you that I love the little old grannies living on the estate. But all of the sudden, the most bizarre looking one becomes a major character after the head injury? I hate making the whole thing a definitive head injury. Instead, I think the rock serves the same function as the tornado in The Wizard of Oz. It is a reason to have this long dream. And that's super important about these movies. It isn't "just a dream." There's something incredibly dismissive about "just a dream" as a read of the story. Yes, it is a dream. Is it literally happening? I don't get that read. But to Mahito, the stakes are as real as if nothing happened. The choices he makes with Granduncle are formative moments for him. The fact that Granduncle doesn't come across as a villainous character, yet is still wrong is the point. There's something incredibly seductive. In that world, he's with his mother. She doesn't act like his mother. There's an age desparity happening there. But he has his mother. He also is the hero of his own story. He's not useless like he was with the hospital. The decisions he makes defy the odds, yet he is still successful. When Dave Bautista the Bird (the most on the nose casting I've ever seen. Miyazaki didn't write the General Parakeet with Dave Bautista in mind. The American casting team said, "Gee, that parakeet looks a lot like Dave Bautista. I wonder if he'd do it?") starts destroying the stairway, it's the same hopelss action as Mahito running towards the flames. But in this version, his insistence that he can do it delivers him to Granduncle, despite it being a literal impossibility. This world is accommodating to him, This world being the creation of Mahito's mind, his wants and his needs, he feels the guilt of being unable to save his mother. It's a difficult journey. I almost giggled when the rocks started electrocuting himself, but that's all just part of his need to punish himself for failing to save his mother. It's so good guys. It's weird, though, how anti-bird this movie gets. My wife hates birds. I think they kind of suck too, but my wife can't stand them. Normally, birds are all majestic, especially in Miyazaki stuff becuase the dude is obsessed with flight. But the birds in this are creepy. Because the movie is also all about the nuanced relationships between life and death, the birds have reasons for their behavior, as proven by Willem Dafoe the Bird. But golly this movie really nails the gross out elements of birds and their mean talons and gross molting. Also, Miyazaki, everyone seems very cool being covered in bird poop. That's not exactly my jam and I can see people being turned off by it. But whatever. It's great. There are some movies that just need to be unpacked and this might be the best example. This easily could be dismissed as chaos on film. I mean, if you watch the way Miyazaki plans out his films, it wouldn't be surprising if something turned out to be a jumbled mess. But everything in this works. Is it a perfect movie? Maybe the pacing could be a little better at times. But I adored this film. It might not win the Academy Award because it does ask a lot of its audience, first and foremost being to watch it. But it nails so much throughout. |
Film is great. It can challenge us. It can entertain us. It can puzzle us. It can awaken us.
AuthorMr. H has watched an upsetting amount of movies. They bring him a level of joy that few things have achieved. Archives
February 2025
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