How do you live? The Boy and The Heron Review

The new Studio Ghibli film, The Boy and the Heron (or translated as ‘How Do You Live’ in Japan), premiered in the US this past December 7th, 2023. The synopsis of the movie is as follows:

Mahito, a young 12-year-old boy, struggles to settle in a new town after his mother’s death. However, when a talking heron informs Mahito that his mother is still alive, he enters an abandoned tower in search of her, which takes him to another world.

Without spoilers, I wanted to share my thoughts on the film, as well as what I’ve learned from my first screening of it.

I excitedly ran to theaters when it came out. I’ve been waiting to see this movie after hearing about it here and there for years. I even read the book it is very loosely based on. The book is titled ‘How Do You Live’ by Genzaburo Yoshino. It also follows a young boy and his experiences through life with some anecdotes from his uncle. I will say it is nothing like the Ghibli film at all, but there are references. I also believe that the message of both is similar. Now onto the film!

The Boy and the Heron is beautifully animated, and you can tell that each scene took a lot of time to compose. The soundtrack is very subtle in the beginning, but it sort of grows as the movie goes on. I think a good takeaway for an artist like me is the time it took to really craft this film is genuinely inspiring. I’ve been juggling doing art and living life, and sometimes the two seem to be one and the same. But I don’t see my art grow as much when I’m focused on it 100%. I feel my art grows the most when I take some time from it, live my life, and find inspiration through my experiences to dig from and reflect. The character of Mahito was also very relatable to me as we both have experienced a similar loss. The film’s way of expressing his grief wasn’t very typical. Films that express grief sometimes tend to be loud and really showing of said grief in very easy to understand ways, such as crying and isolation. But this film showed it in seemingly passive ways and unexpected actions. Not all grief is expressed with outwardly spoken emotions. This sort of added to the slow pace in the first half of the film, which I’ve heard some argue was too slow. However, I really enjoyed it.

Throughout the second half of the movie, we are thrown in a different direction. I feel like this part seemed to be more of a test of understanding for Mahito. His new found beliefs are sort of challenged in the second half. But there were many things, in this half of the movie, I felt were loosely described or maybe left up to too much interpretation. There were characters that I wished were explored more in-depth, and I kind of wanted more ‘hand-holding’ when it came to understanding some of the lore. But I think that just because your audience wants something doesn’t mean they’ll get it. Some of the characters might not have known all that there was in the world they were experiencing, so maybe the ambiguity of it all was warranted. It also leaves a lot up to interpretation, which can be a bit freeing. Even though the total film length was 124 minutes, I did feel a bit rushed through the second half of the movie. But overall, it was still enjoyable.

The film is incredibly silly and playful at times. If you’ve watched any other movies directed by Miyazaki, you’d probably see a lot of similarities with characters in his past films. I really enjoy the art style of Ghibli films in general. I think it’s very simplistic compared to the newer animated films coming out of Japan and the US, yet it still holds charm and can display levels of animated fantasy that are incomparable to other works.

I also like to heavily analyze the stories that films portray because I plan on working on my own graphic novel, and I really like to see how others tell stories through visual media, specifically 2D art. The stories of side characters are very important, and I found that in The Boy and the Heron, we saw the other characters and understood them mostly through the view of the main character, Mahito. We do get hints about the fantasy lore from other characters, but I think the depth of understanding only comes from Mahito and our interpretations.

I’m not too fond of this way of storytelling since I think the audience should hold different perspectives aside from the main protagonist. I sort of wanted to really dive deeper into Mahito’s stepmother, Natsuko’s feelings and learn more about the communities within the fantasy world. But it’s not a bad point of view to follow, as we can make our own interpretations and because this is Mahito’s journey, not his stepmother’s or the fantasy characters’. Hence, it’s not an odd perspective, but I’m just really curious, haha.

I also don’t know if we could piece this film together very well without knowing Miyazaki’s history, as this film is seen as semi-autobiographical. I won’t get much into the relationship between the characters and Miyazaki’s life, but definitely do your own research, as it can help make the story of The Boy and the Heron more cohesive.

The main message of the film seemed to be that of acceptance. You could say the acceptance of the hardships in life, but I think that can even be a bit too restricting. It’s the acceptance of grief, allowing it to hold you, shape you, to help you grow. It’s the acceptance of new people in your life, new situations, environments, and emotions. It’s knowing that life can be really tough but also beautiful in many ways. We really don’t know what is coming next, at what velocity and weight, but we as humans choose to go through it anyway. The title “How Do You Live” then beats at the door of the viewer rapidly. I went home from the theater questioning just that.

I have many goals in my life, goals that I really strived to achieve this past year. I feel like I fell short towards this last quarter of the year. I wondered if the direction I’ve been going was worth it or made any sense. I even thought of some pivots that I could make that I feel would essentially tear down everything I’ve worked for but possibly work for the better. Yet taking any action towards that pivot seemed disingenuous. I constantly wondered if this art thing was rushed or something I should’ve kept on the back burner instead of spending a year doing it. But I remember why I felt like my art was important enough to pursue. It was because I found joy in it. I really love to create and tell stories. But I also love to experience the things and people in my life. If the world was falling apart, I would first go to my loved ones to experience the relationships with them one last time. No profession would ever take precedence over the people in my life. I live right now to experience many different relationships in my life. I create relationships in my work that are reminiscent of the ones I’ve experienced, heck maybe even the ones I wish to experience. Art is a reflection of life. I could say the way I live is to experience the most I can. I try to live through little adventures and travels here and there throughout the year. Maybe trying new things whilst struggling to deal with past traumas. But my art always shows that, it’s an extension of what’s already there. It’s a part of how I live. I’m not sure how I’ll choose to specifically live my life in the coming years, but I’m sure my art will reflect whatever shenanigans I get myself into. Because without life, there would be no art. So I guess I’ll leave you with the same question: how do you live?