Once, after having dinner in a Chinese restaurant in a neighborhood considered peripheral, a gentleman approached me and made me a monologue on the importance of tenderness. It can be said that this film is also a monologue on the importance of tenderness. We are talking about The Boy and the Heron, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki at the cinema from January 1, 2024 and absolutely not to be missed. Produced by Studio Ghibli, the Japanese title is a direct reference to the 1937 novel by Genzaburō Yoshino, which appears in the film. The two stories, however, are not connected. Miyazaki announced he wanted to retire in 2013, but fortunately he decided to stay around a little longer to give us this masterpiece of animation. Perfect for the cinema where it was released on January 1, 2024, distributed by Lucky Red, the film arrives in clear TV on Rai 3 Monday, January 5.
Il ragazzo e l’airone, la storia di un bambino durante la guerra
During World War II in Tokyo, Mahito Maki lost his mother in a hospital fire. After his father’s marriage to his late wife’s sister, Natsuko, flee the city to live in his country estate. Here Mahito follows a grey heron that leads him to a tower. On the tower there are many legends, and it is even said that it is dominated by the spirits of the place, that they knew the mother of the boy and that they promise to bring it to life, as long as he enters the tower, which is located at the border between the real world and another world, populated by fantastic creatures and bad birds. Mahito, blinded by mourning, resists, but when Natsuko disappears inside the building risks everything to go looking for it. Once in the other world he knows Himi, a child who aims to help him. Together, they find Natsuko, and a sorcerer asks Mahito to guard the world. Resurrected, Mahito refuses and faces the King of the Parrots, which destroys the blocks causing chaos.
Il ragazzo e l’airone, un colossal di tenerezza
The boy is the heron is a film about a child who loses his mother during the war and tries to metabolize a huge and very difficult mourning alone. It does not help the fact that the father – who is portrayed as an unscrupulous businessman who does not know how to live without a partner – decided to marry the sister of the dead wife, got her pregnant and transferred everyone to the countryside, in the house that was of the wife’s family and therefore of the mother of our little protagonist, who is now alone, in a place unknown to him who seems to know him but who calls his name. At the end of his thousand adventures, made of the usual creatures halfway between the grotesque, the magic and moving of Miyazaki, Mahito chooses to continue to live, to let his mother go and to remain tender despite everything, fighting for his innocence as a child but also for a happy life.
No domande, sì lasciarsi trascinare nel vortice
This film is more than a film by Studio Ghibli, a film by Studio Ghibli at the second. Visively dragging and powerful, it transports us into dead worlds, in Japanese moors suckery. The visual force accompanies the history, which is involved, dispersed, very wide. Sometimes, it is critical to these films not to be enough driven plot, to explain too little, not to close all the threads and not to pull the strings. Actually, I think it’s good not to ask too many questions. The boy and the heron never lose sight of the fact of being an animated film, and in its chaotic and swirling greatness lies its strength, which is almost dreamy but also terribly earthy, all in one.
Il cast di voci giapponese
In the cast of the original voices Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Ko Shibasaki, Aimyon, Yoshino Kimura, Takuya Kimura, Kaoru Kobayashi and Shinobu Otake.
Article The boy and the Airone: enough questions, it is time to dream – The review comes from Dituttounpop.it.
