The Boy and The Heron is an utter joy

A “big fantastical film” written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, legendary co-founder of the legendary Japanese Studio Ghibli, The Boy and the Heron is yet another stonkingly good release at the end of the year.

It’s 1943 and 12-year-old Mahito Maki’s mother Hisako is killed in a hospital fire in Tokyo, as he sees the building collapse in flames.

Mahito’s father Shoichi, an air munitions factory owner, marries his late wife’s younger sister, Natsuko, and a year later, the pair move to her estate in the countryside, where she is attended by several old women. But Mahito is indifferent to the affectionate overtures of his pregnant new mother.

A grey heron, behaving in a way never seen before, leads Mahito to a derelict tower on the estate, which was sealed after its architect – Natsuko’s eccentric granduncle – disappeared inside.

Meanwhile, Mahito finds a copy of How Do You Live?, dedicated to him by his mother. There's big meaning stuff here – the novel was by Genzaburō Yoshino, published in 1937, and is the Japanese title of this film.

When Natsuko goes missing – Mahito had seen her walking toward the tower – he realises that, for all his indifference toward her, he has to find and save her.

Entering the tower, he moves into a series of alternate worlds. In one, he encounters bubble-like spirits called Warawara – reminiscent of the Adipose in the Doctor Who 2008 episode, Partners in Crime – but all of these worlds have levels of threat and complexity.

Ultimately, he is faced with the choice of – in effect – becoming a god (and would he be a good god or a bad god?) or returning to his own world, even though he hates the state of where that is (WWII).

It’s a brilliant, beautiful, complex film. The animation completely recalls for me that ‘golden age’ of Disney – glorious watercolour backgrounds and simpler characters/foregrounds.

I saw the dubbed version and voice talents include Mark Hamill as the granduncle, and Dave Bautista as the king of vastly overgrown – and monstrous – parakeets (no, I’m not having you on).

The music by Joe Hisaishi is well worth noting – a beautiful soundtrack.

Having lost my husband in September – and with so much of what I’ve seen since seeming to involve grief and how people deal with it – I found it immensely moving, but also invigorating.

It’s an absolute joy to watch – the look is sensational – and it has an ultimately positive message about how we have to move forward from loss.