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Just got out of The Boy and the Heron. I think my opinion is overly negative because of the high esteem that I have for Miyazaki, So to find myself mostly bored and feeling like I wasn't able to emotionally resonate with anything is disappointing. It's obviously well crafted and thought out, I couldn't call it a bad movie but it's not a movie I'd recommend to anyone. The two peaks of the movie for me were The main character fletching an arrow, and the parakeet king just because that design and animation was awesome
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Dec 10, 2023 04:40
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 02:48 |
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I was surprised at how almost lovecraftian the story was, what with somebody accessing forbidden knowledge of another dimension from a space rock and becoming a wizard god. It's a fantastic setting, which is creatively evocative but never really pushed the emotional stakes? For a movie about a family in possession of a pocket dimension that weaves through both the past and the future, I didn't feel like it was utilized to actually tell us anything about this family. The development of the great-grand-uncle wanting the main character to take over his fragile pocket dimension only really comes up at the end of the movie, and his reasoning for even creating this world seems to be a dissatisfaction with the one he came from- though we don't learn why he feels that way, or get any insight into why Mahito rejects his offer. It's a snippet of a philosophical interaction That as best as I can tell isn't driven by characterization. I also feel that our MC meeting the childhood version of his dead mother out of time is not explored all that satisfactorily. Maybe this is an issue with the dub but he doesn't even acknowledge her as his mom until the very end at the door is where he's asking her not to go because she'll die. I would have liked to see a scene where he realizes who she is and is affected by that. I should say something positive to give the movie it's proper due though, because just complaining about it isn't fair to the obvious technical talent on display. All of the animal animation is gorgeously detailed and expressive, communicating emotion well when characters don't have human bodies or faces. You realize watching one of these movies that part of what makes them so immersive is that they don't take any detail for granted. Little things like the way people change how they walk through tall grass, how dirt and cobwebs clump up against mahito when he's crawling through a scuzzy tunnel, or as I mentioned above depicting the minutia of crafting a single arrow using a stick as the shaft , pounding down a nail to be the head, before cutting the end with a knife and securing two feathers using a paste made from chewed up rice. If you wanted to save yourself some effort time or money you can cut around these things, explain that they happened through dialogue, or just expect the audience to not require so much out of you. But if Miyazaki does anything right it's these engrossing little embellishments that put up a microscope up to the smallest of actions so you can appreciate them fully
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Dec 10, 2023 05:08
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Steve Yun posted:Just got out of Boy and the Heron This is an interesting and reflective angle that didn't occur to me when watching it. Now that I think about it, I can see how the great-grand Uncle wizard can represent Miyazaki himself as being an imperfect crafter of worlds that he makes to escape the one he's from, and is unable to find an heir to take over this work of creation. Now I'm certainly not an artist of miyazaki's caliber (please please contain your surprise!) but I have thought to myself when writing horror stories "drat, I create these people for these stories just to put them through abysmal horrible poo poo. If I were to criticize some sort of God for creating me and giving me a lovely little life, I'd almost be hypocritical." So what you're saying makes me wonder if Miyazaki is reflecting on the worlds that he created and how they can never be complete or self-sustaining, rife with conflict that can never be neatly resolved.
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Dec 10, 2023 05:13
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Steve Yun posted:Okay here’s my big blindfolded swing at the piñata, feel free to laugh at me if I miss  This makes sense to me
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Dec 10, 2023 06:25
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Something about your read makes me wonder though, what is meant to be evoked by the maternal characters in the movie? That feels so central to the plot and Mahito's internal conflict but I can't tie it to this thesis about creativity
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Dec 10, 2023 06:29
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Cephas' commentary on the meaning of the tower, and stone and wood, is very interesting. That made me remember that Mahito injures himself with a stone, and it's that wound that he later presents as a representation of his own malice. Perhaps something is being said here about the Pollyanna idea in creativity that you can make something ideal, without recognizing that your own malice from the world is going to leak into it. So perhaps what's going on in the grand uncle's world is reflective of the "animation for social good" mission that you're talking about- He's trying to escape a world that he thinks is too hosed up to accept, and make his own free of the outside world's problems. The issue is is that he is a product of that world, as well as the animals that he forces to live there. Unknowingly they all inherent the karma of our reality despite being completely disconnected from it in space and time. When you talk about permanence of stone versus impermanence of wood, and how Mahito rejects the responsibility of creation because of his own malice It makes me think of what my zen teacher calls "opposite thinking", and how we suffer because of the way we think about the world and evaluate it. The great-grand uncle is living in a artificial fantasy world that he is constantly striving and bargaining to make perfect, which is an arduous and endless task. Meanwhile Mahito Is able to make peace with the fact that he's imperfect and So he doesn't accept the fool's errand of trying to make a self-sustaining perfect world.
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Dec 10, 2023 15:58
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Another positive for me is all of the little old lady animation. Top shelf stuff, 10/10 weird old ladies
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Dec 10, 2023 16:10
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Pootybutt posted:I'm always a sucker for stories that put the incredible effort to get across a characters' pain in so little words. I can definitely accept that if Miyazaki had a passionate personal message to get across, it's fine and worthwhile that he did that rather than making something that appealed to my sensibilities. Porco Rosso already exists so he's done me a hell of a solid already. I also agree that there is an intense contemplative energy to Mahito That is interesting in the first half, his kurtness, his wordless angry relationship with the heron, The way we see his issues at school play out without dialogue. That's all good stuff told visually. Still though, This movie didn't so much "kill me" as I did find it underwhelming past the first act. I place a lot of importantance on characters and their relationships in fiction, and while there are many interesting philosophical ideas that All of us in the thread are picking up on, I never got all that attached or felt like I had an understanding for any of the relationships. Why does the stepmom hate Mahito? Why does he accept her as his mother? Why doesn't he ever seem affected or interested in the fact that he has a chance to connect with this isolated and preserved instance of his dead mother? I feel like the most developed relationship is between Mahito and the Heron, and even that feels like it resolves in a rushed way I didn't understand. These are all things that I kept waiting on, and in concept at least I was invested in. Because it's the most recent movie I've seen in the theaters, I keep comparing it to Godzilla Minus One, which obviously has much different ambitions than Heron, but I got so sucked into that movie because I understood the relationships between all the characters and I cared about how the events of the story affected said relationships. I can't say the same for this one I don't know, this all reminds me of discussions I've had with my friends about Dark Souls 2 and how partially the negativity we hoist onto it is because of its loaded name- being a sequel to something that we have high praise for. My friend will say after all of his criticisms that it's "still better than most games released that year," and I have a similar sentiment towards this movie. I'm not going to call it bad because that would be severely misleading, it's not bad, it's much more well-made than nearly everything else in theaters right now. Still though, it just didn't land for me. It is fun and interesting to analyze it with all of you though!
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Dec 10, 2023 16:27
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Steve Yun posted:Gonna need to see it a second time to catch all the stuff you guys are pointing out That facsimile of his mother that the Heron created which turns into water when Mahito touches it
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Dec 10, 2023 20:29
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Steve Yun posted:Yeah, definitely gonna get this on Blu-ray I think you hit the nail on the head here, and will probably be the main reason why everyone's mileage may vary.
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Dec 10, 2023 20:39
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Owl at Home posted:I've been turning the movie over in my mind a lot since seeing it on Sunday, and the more I think about it the more I see the parakeets as an extended metaphor for the fans/viewers. Thoughts? Well you could certainly call the parakeets "consumers"
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Dec 13, 2023 15:57
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