Kaku Arakawa’s documentary about Hayao Miyazaki and his work on The Boy and the Heron.
Each of Hayao Miyazaki’s later projects took years to make, and he announced each of them as his last work. After the release of his very personal film The Wind Rises in 2013 Miyazaki retired, but only to return a few years later to his producer and friend Toshio Suzuki with a new idea, asking him to find funding for The Boy and The Heron—the story of Mahito, who is looking for his mother in a magical world.
Mahito’s guide is a strange heron, and in the magical world the boy meets his relative, the creator of a magic tower. From Kaku Arakawa’s movie we learn that the protagonist is based on Miyazaki himself, his heron helper on the producer and fellow creator Suzuki, and the creator of the tower—and of the entire magical world where Mahito travels—on Isao Takahata, director and co-founder of Studio Ghibli. Takahata passed away in 2018, and Miyazaki says that after his friend’s death, he continued an imaginary dialog with him through the storyboards. The Boy and the Heron is full of reflections on creativity, memory, and our relationship with the past.
Arakawa’s documentary focuses on the creative process and offers insight into the everyday work of the animation director. Miyazaki does the same things for years: walks to work in his working apron, drinks coffee, sits at his desk with the storyboards, occasionally distracted by the shouts of children in the street. Thus pass the long and tedious seven years, compressed by editing until 2am, which will produce the magical world of The Boy and the Heron.
The film will be screened in Japanese with Russian subtitles.
Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron
Director: Kaku Arakawa
Japan, 2024. 120 min.
16+
