The Boy and the Heron

The Boy and the Heron is an animation of fantastic realities and rich emotional textures. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki, one of Japan’s finest filmmakers, the result is a movie that leaves you holding this world more tightly.

A young boy, Mahito, loses his mother. Relocating to the countryside to live with a distant relative, Mahito stumbles across an overgrown tower. Inside the tower, he encounters new and dreamlike possibilities. In ways similar to The Chronicles of Narnia’s Wood Between the Worlds or Alice in Wonderland’s Rabbit Hole, Mahito finds himself immersed in fantastic adventures. This is where The Boy and the Heron shines, offering textured attention to detail and stunning visual renderings.

Amid the worlds of magical possibilities, director Hayao Miyazaki cleverly ropes fantasy with reality. As Mahito travels to his country home, he passes soldiers departing for World War II. As Mahito explores mysterious worlds inside the tower, his father stores Zero fighter cockpits in the country home. As Mahito adventures, his experiences traverse feelings of anger, bargaining, and depression through to acceptance. These references lasso Miyazaki’s fantasy worlds to real-world experiences of grief and trauma.

Japanese art and culture have significantly shaped animation as a film genre. A well-known example in Western culture is Pokemon. This Japanese media franchise includes trading cards and video games, along with animated series and films. Often described as anime, the genre focuses less on action and more on detail.

Central to anime are the large eyes of the main characters. In Japan, the eyes of each character are considered “windows to the soul.” This helps us interpret The Boy and the Heron as a window into childhood experiences of grief and loss. In fantasy, Mahito finds ways to traverse historical realities and grief’s emotions.

A feature of the animated worlds created by director Hayao Miyazaki are the birds. A grey heron leads Mahito to the tower and becomes a reluctant travelling companion. In another fantasy sequence, pelicans swoop to hungrily devour babies not yet born while parakeets guard the worlds that Mahito explores. The Boy and the Heron places Mahito in antagonistic relationships with these birds of water, sea and land.

These conflicted relationships provide ways to think theologically with The Boy and the Heron. Christian theologian Kirsteen Kim observes that birds offer new realities and fresh hope in the Bible. Birds guide Noah toward dry land in Genesis 8. Ravens feed the starving prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 17. At the baptism of Jesus, in all four gospels, the Spirit of God descends like a dove. Coming from above, the dove is associated with words of Divine love and pleasure. It’s no wonder that Jesus instructs his disciples in Matthew 6 to learn from the birds of the air and find ourselves in the care of God.

Nominated for a Golden Globe, The Boy and the Heron creates stunning visual worlds and fantasy characters. In considering the birds of the air, we open ourselves to messages of Divine care amid the realities of every worlds’ griefs.

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is the author of "First Expressions" (2019) and writes widely in theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.