The Boy and the Heron (2023)★ 7.8/10

It’s an artistic and wildly imaginative feat in visuals, but I think Miyazaki opens too many portals into worlds I don’t find emotionally resonant to. It felt like an effort to make the movie look more sophisticated than it actually is. This was not for me! However, if you are a Miyazaki fan, this movie has his name written all over it.

No other movies make me feel like Miyazaki's do, and I’m just so happy we got another. I avoided all trailers and reviews, so I could go in totally blind, just like when I saw “Spirited Away” in 2002. what a good decision. It felt like I got fully transported to another realm for two hours.

Forgetting is normal. There is no point in trying to remember everything. It’s unrealistic, but more importantly, unfair. Mahito shouldn’t feel guilty, and neither should we. It’s an even more poignant message considering it’s coming from a master reaching the end of his career. The Miyazaki x Hisaishi combo breaks me every single time but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

You can sit and ponder the very nature of existence and grief. Juggling the choice between letting go or staying. Do you want to be with the person you love the most or build a tower?

My top ten of 2023. It portrays broken families, a society haunted by war, and metaphors for Nazism. Despite all this, how do you want to live your life? How do you recover hope amidst disappointment, regain equilibrium in a chaotic world, and find love in the harshness of destiny? This is a gift from a great artist in his twilight years.

After watching it for the second time, my feelings about it remain unchanged. Miyazaki has created a magnificent parallel world, but he hasn't given a clear emotional plotline to support it. The visuals are still stunning, and you can spot many familiar elements from his past works. It seems like Miyazaki intended to summarize his career in this final piece, but unfortunately, the story hasn't been fully developed.

This is Hayao Miyazaki's most obscure film, blending different dreams and presenting a non-linear narrative. The visuals remain stunning, and thematically, it continues Miyazaki's consistent anti-fascist stance found in his previous works.

Dreams come one after another, overwhelming at first before they are dissected and then reassembled again. The youth calls on his friends, drifting across oceans, strolling into gardens, climbing castles, and striding towards temples. In this world, metaphors and symbolism no longer capture their original essence. In an era shaped by war, curiosity and bravery are the keys to finding oneself and understanding the world.

It's really hard to assess a film like this... It comes across as quite self-indulgent, so as an outsider and viewer, I'd only give it a 6 or 7. However, it's also the first time a great artist has expressed himself so freely, sharing his own story without regard for the audience - it's a summary of his life, a farewell work. How could I not give a film like this full marks?

No matter how many movies I've watched in my life, or how many grand buildings have been blown up in real life, none is more heart-wrenching than Miyazaki's collapsing toy bricks and crumbling stone towers.

There's indeed some awkward exposition (let's not label it as an overly direct metaphor just yet), and the chapters aren't quite cohesive, but each element still keeps the story going and retains the narrative's intensity. As a result, when all this complexity is distilled in the final moment, time is redefined in hindsight, and the weight of the decisions made is released at long last. A reunion, an embrace, a door closing — even those overly cute elements can't prevent Miyazaki from demonstrating his ability to capture the most profound emotions.

Expressing how I feel is quite a challenge. The movie jumps between the real world and a symbolic, metaphorical world, weaving an adventure reminiscent of "Alice in Wonderland”. The symbolic world is quite complex, leading to ambiguities in interpretations. In the real world, the house is set in a tranquil and seemingly secluded country estate, which likely invites diverse interpretations among the audience as it’s not the typical scenes of wartime devastation often found in anti-war films... The storytelling is a bit scattered, with the protagonist's central motivation changing twice. The visuals are striking, featuring not only beautiful animation but also a nostalgic, director-specific aesthetic (even though it doesn't quite match the real-world setting, lol).