Another Boy and the Heron critique. It's good but not my preference

More than a few now of this studio's movies have left me underwhelmed and this makes a fourth to the list. (grave of the fireflies, porco rosso, my neighbor totoro). Good storytelling plays such a crucial role in meaningfull cinema and unfortunately for this movie, there isn't much to go on.

There are a lot of plot decisions I disagree with, mainly being that the first half of the movie dragged on for too long and didn't enamor/captivate with its characters. The second half was much more Ghibli fashion but failed to go deep enough into the world building. If this was intentional, designed to put the audience in the shoes of Mahito silently mourning the loss of his mother then fine, but I really don't think it did a good job at that. The introduction of Chihiro in "Spirited Away" did a far better job at persueding the audience and adding something similar to that here, in proper context, could have fit this story better. I certainly don't like the similarities this movie has to "Grave of the fireflies" in terms of character introduction and their struggles (mother dying off screen). For it to take place during WW2 doesn't really add any value to the story and I believe it would have been better if they chose another time. Or to just make the world entirely fictional as more than half the movie is ficitonal anyways. Certainly this would have made the story more relatable because young people now can't relate to living during WW2. It works for "The Wind Rises" because the struggles of the time are actually part of the story, and not just a backdrop to be abandoned in the first ten minutes of watching.

The characters throughout the movie feel very half baked; notably all the grannies/house workers. To me it seemed like there was more planned for them other than the screen time they were given. We are led to believe that there is significance to how they are animated differently than previous characters; being overly short with cartoony faces. But nothing ever happens to deepen their existence in the plot so it almost makes them feel like a waste of screen time. Maybe they were intended to provide a connection to the creative animation of the Heron, like the Heron was something out of Mahito's imagination (think wizard of oz and dorthy's friends on the farm). I will also bring up how irritating their dialoge was to me; the pettines and lack of empathy in their tone, and all just to end up not supporting the story. Their relation to the mysteriousness of the estate/tower, and the total ignorance of the father just doesn't connect with the story or with the audience. But maybe it was supposed to be like this; in order to portray that there are limits to the complexity of a childs imagination. The plot doesn't give any screaming clues to the audience of this and that could well be the greatest crime commited by this film.

Some more grievences; the typically stunning, hand-painted background pans/shots that studio Ghibli is very well loved for seem rushed in this execution/iteration. They are still great but they should have been "richer" or positioned to have more emotional impact, which I believe they fail to achieve in this film. I think that I was just underwhelmed overall with the atmosphere here, even if it was intentionally so. Especially since this aspect of ghibli films is what draws us in and immerses us quite forcefully (forcibly?) in all the films prior. It just never grabbed me with this one.

My biggest disappointment in this film was the addition of over-complicated dialogue that just gets spit out by a character without any cause for it. I get how it's supposed to explain something new that the audience wouldn't fill in for themselves but it really damages the quality of the movie. Trying to enlighten something that should be left up for interpretation (for the sake of plot pacing, palpability, or flow of the story) just leaves the audience thinking "okay sure, but why did I need to know that?". As well as adding confusion because that character wouldn't just spew out mildly significant information without any of the other characters asking prior. Vague aspects of the story are meant to be vague, because the audience doesn't need dead-end information that doesn't support the main struggles of the plot. "Mary and the Witch's Flower" is also full of this and that is why I don't care for that "film", if you can call it that. This really cheapens it overall for me. For example, the explanation of the stone and its properties, and most of Himi's dialogue when she is dragging Mahito around the the world. But honestly, no character is safe from this. Everyone in this movie eventually said something questionable and in turn distracted from the immersion of the story.

For me the only redeemable part of the movie is the 20 mins or so between Mahito sailing off the island with Kiriko up to the flight of the Warawara. I enjoyed the ship that was overgrown, reminding me of one of Howls changing doors and how charming the interior of the ship was. The Warawara I felt was a cool adition. Being a significant purpose of the ocean world, the home of the spirits both living and dead, with a slight holiness to it all that was very beautiful. Unfortunately everything after those scenes felt unreachable emotionally, including the tower master's garden, and everything to do with the parakeets. Is there any significance to the parakeets or the pelicans? Are they demons or not? Why were they cursed to live in a world without food? You decide I guess. The remaining characters seem to not even register their unusual presence in the end of the film.

I have a deep appriciation for nearly all of Miyazaki's work and I find many of his films so incredibly heartwrenching and relatable. Of course "The Boy and the Heron" has many of the same redeeming qaulities when it comes to artistic execution and animation. But this one doesn't feel like a proper story.

Perhaps I had my expectations set too high after loosing all worldly control of my tear ducts uppon my first watch of "The Wind Rises". I still respect "The Boy and the Heron" for what it is because it is certainly a child of Miyazaki, but my preferences lie with "Mononoke" and "Nausica" alike stories. Overall I am left feeling sad with this film for the wrong reasons. Sad that I don't like it even though its intentions are clear enough after taking the time to get my thoughts together. I want to feel sadness steming from empathy or connection to the film's characters, but I suppose that's not its sole purpose. As for it being Miyazaki's last film, I hope that he is happy with it and the fragments of a message it leaves to the audience about the symbolic end of his career.