Rating: 2.5/5
Miyazaki needed us to see people covered in bird shit, hugging one another
Mahito Maki, a young boy, wakes up to the sound of fire bells. He glances outside to find his mother’s hospital engulfed in flames. He runs through the crowd, the edges between him and the fire bleeding into one another as he calls out for her.
His father, Shoichi, marries Natsuko, a woman who looks just like Mahito’s mother. Later in the movie, we learn she is his mother’s younger sister. They evacuate to her country home.
As soon as they arrive, a grey heron bothers Mahito. It tries to draw Mahito to a dilapidated tower in the woods. It promises that his mother is inside the building.
Still, it is not until Natsuko wanders into the woods and goes missing that Mahito finds the bravery to enter the tower and bring her back.
Once inside, he learns… a lot of things that I found hard to follow.
The film is about grief. It’s also about selflessness. And the older generation’s duty to the next. It’s also about idealism versus reality.
After a decade of waiting, Miyazaki accumulated a ton of thoughts for his film. Desperate for this to be his last film, he put everything he had to say in here. The film, consequently, is too long and lacks cohesion.
In terms of aesthetics, this matches Studio Ghibli’s other works in beauty. Some character design choices seem random, perhaps because of the book’s influence.
I acknowledge being in a minority opinion. Despite its attempt to be deep and emotional, the movie left me feeling cold and uninvested.