A film by Hayao Miyazaki, director of masterpieces such as My Friend Totoro (1988) and Spirited Away (2001), is always a cinematic event. But the filmmaker's first feature after Vidas ao Vento in 2013, when he announced his retirement, raised additional expectations. “Kimitachi Wa” from “Ikiru Ka” (whose translation is roughly “How would you live your life?”) was released in Japan in July, without a trailer, poster or promotional photos. It was the largest opening of a Studio Ghibli production in the country.
The fear grew with the screening of the film, renamed The Boy and the Heron, in the international market, at festivals in Toronto, San Sebastián, New York and London and, above all, with its premiere in the United States on August 8. The work occupied took first place at the box office with the also Japanese Godzilla Minus One in third place, which is very rare.
The reviews and awards began to come out: Best Animation of the Year for the Critics Associations of New York, Los Angeles, Boston, as well as nominations for the Critics Choice and the Golden Globe, where the best film score also competes beautiful work by Joe Hisaishi.
Scene from “The Boy and the Crane” shows Mahito Maki in Hayao Miyazaki's new film Photo: Studio Ghibli/GKIDS/Disclosure
But the Brazilians were worried: until then there were no dealers in Brazil. “Why?” fans asked on Twitter. It wasn't for lack of interest. The film market has not yet recovered from the pandemic and today, with a few exceptions, films bring half the number of viewers to cinemas than before 2020.
This represents a big risk for companies, especially if the rights are not available for all platforms cinemas, ondemand, cable TV, streaming. Due to a number of circumstances, including the initial desire to have a single distributor for all of Latin America, arrival in Brazil was delayed.
But the Brazilians can stay calm because… Estadao exclusively noted that the Sato Company had acquired distribution of The Boy and the Crane for Brazilian cinemas. The company has always brought several animes to the country and is responsible here for the launch of Godzilla Minus One, which premiered on Thursday the 14th and took second place at the box office this weekend.
Sato also opened a cinema in the Liberdade district of São Paulo. “It is a great joy, especially because this work is considered perhaps the last by Hayao Miyazaki,” he told the Estadao Nelson Sato, president of the Sato Company, who had been negotiating the rights for about six months. The film is scheduled to premiere in February or the first week of March, ahead of the Oscars, which take place on March 10.
Himi in a scene from “The Boy and the Crane” by Hayao Miyazaki Photo: Studio Ghibli/GKIDS/Disclosure
“The Boy and the Crane” contains elements that the 82yearold director has explored in his previous works, such as grief and growing pains. But the tone is different: darker, more adult, but at the same time with a freer structure that will delight children.
Miyazaki has always used certain autobiographical elements in his films, but never as obviously as here. According to Toshio Suzuki, cofounder of Ghibli, in an interview with the website Deadline, the filmmaker has never made a film in which he is the protagonist. It was something he wanted to do in life. Therefore, the main character is a 12yearold boy, Mahito.
In the first scene, he runs desperately towards the hospital where his mother is admitted, burning after a bombing in World War II. It's a sequence the likes of which Studio Ghibli has never produced before. It simultaneously symbolizes the horror of war and the helplessness of a child in the face of the death of his mother.
Like Mahito, little Hayao, born in 1941, grew up with images of war in his memory. During the conflict, the family left Tokyo and moved to a small town. His father also made parts for fighter planes. His mother, a source of inspiration for her heroines, spent a long time in the hospital, separated from her son, because of tuberculosis.
In the film, Mahito's loss is final. His father soon marries the woman's younger sister, much to the confusion of the boy, who refuses to accept both his grief and that of his stepmother. He is polite but not very willing to adapt to his new life. The boy is much less sweet than a Miyazaki protagonist usually is.
Mahito Maki is the boy from the film “The Boy and the Crane”. Photo: Studio Ghibli/GKIDS/Disclosure
When the eponymous crane appears and informs him that his mother is still alive, Mahito sets out without hesitation on a dizzying journey through an area between life and death, between dream and reality, whose gate is a mysterious tower. Built by a great uncle. It's as if Miyazaki has placed his subconscious there, in a continuous flow of wonderful images that don't always make obvious sense.
The crane turns into a man dressed as a bird, there are menacing giant parakeets that blindly obey a king parakeet, a fisherwoman who supplies souls with fish. The adorable Warawara look like marshmallows with their legs and arms. A strangely familiar girl is able to tame fire.
In this parallel area, Mahito meets Great Uncle, the mysterious figure who built the tower and has gone mad after reading too much. According to Suzuki, the character played a more fundamental role in the film. Great Uncle, the creative master, was based on Isao Takahata, also cofounder of Studio Ghibli and mentor to Miyazaki. Takahata died in 2018 in the middle of production. Due to his grief, Miyazaki was unable to continue working on the storyboard and focused the plot on the friendship between the boy and the crane.
This is how the mourning for Mahito and Miyazaki meet in the film. Mahito must figure out how to live, what kind of person he wants to be the question contained in the Japanese title of Genzaburo Yoshino's 1937 book, one of Hayao Miyazaki's favorite books and one of the film's literary inspirations.
The Boy and the Crane is a testament to Hayao Miyazaki, even if it doesn't end up being his last film since he's already announced his retirement and backed out, you never know what's next.
Like his other works, it makes him marvel at man's capacity for evil and violence, trauma and pain, but also the value of friendship, love, beauty, care, nature and dreams. At the same time as looking at the past, it also makes a proposal for the future that is addressed to each of us: How should we live?
Great uncle, in “The Boy and the Crane” Photo: Studio Ghibli/GKIDS/Disclosure