My thoughts on The Boy and the Heron (君たちはどう生きるか)

This is a deeper dive into The Boy and the Heron (君たちはどう生きるか) which I watched today. It contains spoilers so please read this post instead if you don't like spoilers.

 

The story itself is hard to understand, because many of the fantasy setting concepts are not really explained. First, the real world part is set in Japan, during the later years of World War Two. Tokyo was being bombed and the main character Mahito's mother was lost to a fire when the hospital she was in got bombed. Somewhere further down the timeline, Mahito was evacuated to the countryside, to his mother's ancestral home and the place of his father's new aircraft factory. While it was not explained, it is likely that his mother Hisako came from a rich family (they have a very huge house) and his father married into the family. This was also probably why his father remarried his aunt Natsuko (who is Hisako's younger sister) after his mother's death, so that he remains tied to the wealthy family.

The fantastical part of the story, though, is a bit harder to grasp. Apparently, there was this tower built by Mahito's granduncle. This tower is able to transcend time, so his granduncle is inside this tower, where he builds his own perfect world, keeping it in balance. His granduncle is also looking for a successor to keep building this world, maintaining the balance, and only someone related by blood can be his successor.

The first part of the story probably has that autobiographical aspect for director Miyazaki Hayao, who was born in 1941, and was also evacuated to the countryside during the war as a child. His father also worked at a factory that made aircraft parts. His mother struggled with illnesses for many years. The inability of Mahito's granduncle to find a successor can be likened to Miyazaki Hayao's own predicament. His son Goro has not shown himself to be capable of living up to his father's fame and talents. Hayao has built a world (the Ghibli name) with his 13 building blocks (his works), but there is no one to take over those from him. It is like Hayao telling the world that there is no one in his bloodline capable of taking over the Ghibli name. It is kind of sad when you see it this way. This movie is about different aspects of Hayao's life, with a message that one "should not escape into a perfect world that you build, but learn to live bravely in the real world." I think there is also that sadness about being unable to find a proper successor, but at the same time, knowing that he has nurtured many great "successors", as shown in the end credits that stated the involvement of animation studios related to Anno Hideaki, Hosoda Mamoru, and Shinkai Makoto.

Hayao also has a message to them, though. In the movie, there was a gate with the message, "Those who learn from me shall die." I think he is trying to remind these creators that, it is not enough to just learn what he has done, but to then go on to create their own styles. In this story, Hayao has created a movie of his own, for himself. I don't think he made this movie for entertainment. While the animation and music are great, the story makes it unappealing to the masses. It is not like Spirited Away, it is not like a Spiderman movie. It is more like some parts of Hayao's life, weaved with some of his dreams (or nightmares).

 

I also find Mahito's voice to be a bit out of character. Based on the height of Mahito compared to his step-mother Natsuko, Mahito looks more like someone in elementary school, maybe 10 years old, although Wikipedia says he is 12 years old. Well, whether he is 10 or 12, he is voiced by someone with a deeper voice than an elementary school boy. So based on the voice, you would think Mahito is like 15 years old, but the story and visuals portray him as someone much younger. This mismatch between sight and sound was really disruptive because it makes it hard to relate to Mahito.

Mahito's step-mother Natsuko, who is also his aunt (his mother's younger sister), is also another character that is hard to grasp. I don't know if she wants to get along with Mahito, or she hates him. I mean, at the start of the movie, Mahito just lost his mother. The next thing you know, he is being evacuated to the countryside, his father has remarried his aunt, and his aunt-now-step-mother is pregnant. And she is the one who told him, "Your father and I got married. And can you feel the baby here?" This is not what an aunt would say to her nephew, unless she is trying to one-up him. Maybe Natsuko never got along well with her sister Hisako (Mahito's mother), or maybe Natsuko was actually in love with Mahito's father but Hisako was the one who got married to him. It sounds like there is more juicy stuff to this story. But then, in another scene, Natsuko becomes the understanding mother who just wants to get along with her step-son.

Mahito's father is also a horrible person. His son has to transfer to a new school after being evacuated to the countryside. He has just lost all his friends and needs to somehow get along with strangers in class. And this father thought it was a good thing to drive his son to school in a car when most people didn't own cars... you know, show off the wealth a bit. How is this supposed to impress his new classmates? Or did his father think making his son the new subject of school bullying is the best education for him?

Well, in the end, Mahito got bullied, and to get his father's attention, he hurt himself. But instead of noticing that the injury was a call for help, a cry for attention, his father went off accusing the school and trying to find the classmates who hurt Mahito (they didn't cause that injury) and in the end, made a "donation" to the school so that Mahito didn't need to attend classes anymore. Great parenting. Teach your son to buy his way out of problems instead of facing them.

If you can look past these unfathomable parts of the characters, and like to try to interpret the dreams (nightmares?) that Hayao had, maybe it will be a story that you can relate to. But personally, I just can't.

 

At the end of the day, The Boy and the Heron could well be Miyazaki Hayao's way of showing that hardcore fans will watch and praise anything made by him, Goro's haters will love anything made by Hayao, and movie critics will say anything to show that they are the only ones with the intellect to see the true meaning in a film, even when the director himself doesn't understand it. 

 

In the end, if you ask me whether I would watch the movie again, frankly, I think I would not, unless someone comes up with a super-interesting discovery about the movie that requires me to watch it again to ascertain for myself. If you do think there is something interesting enough to warrant another look, please leave a comment.