“The Boy and the Heron” is Studio Ghibli film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, his final film before retiring from making Ghibli movies. The movie starts as a simple story of loss and love, and rises to a staggering work of imagination, with a young boy named Mahito at the center of the story.
“The Boy and the Heron” deals with complex themes regarding grief and mortality that manifest with visual splendor. Where the film really comes alive is in its creative, expressive and striking animation. Miyazaki creates a world of imagination that is so extraordinary using stunning colors, beautiful backgrounds, and interesting character design. Specifically, the fire animation is both vivid and unique compared to all other fire animation that I’ve seen. The fire created a frenzied, blurred image that looked like impressionistic artwork.
Overall, this film is fantastic and it secures Miyazaki as a talent who will go down as one of the greatest animation directors.
