Auto-Ghibli
Miyazaki’s “final” film is more a greatest hits reel than a proper swan song
SPOILER ALERT: Plot details for How Do You Live? and many Ghibli films follow.
A major reason why Goro Miyazaki’s Tales From Earthsea didn’t quite land with me was because it lacked an original style. It felt way too derivative of the films of his father, Hayao Miyazaki. The elder Miyazaki himself even derided his son as not quite an adult after viewing the film. What a shame, then, that Miyazaki’s latest film for Studio Ghibli, How Do You Live? (known overseas as The Boy and the Heron) is just as derivative: a “greatest hits” reel on auto-pilot that borders on self-aware. It’s almost like an AI impression of a “Ghibli film” or a first draft that was published without an editor. What I always loved about Ghibli was that each film felt different. For while there were common tropes and themes, each film was distinct in its story and animation style. Not so here. How Do You Live? nakedly plucks from the Ghibli library to the point of parody.
The films open with a fire in a Japanese town during a World War II firebombing. It carries the same visual intensity as the bombing scenes in Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies. This nightmarish opening is the strongest section of the film visually. When our boy protagonist, Mahito, rushes out to find his mother amidst the flames, we can almost feel the heatwaves, as the shapes of others are distorted. It stylistically stands out from previous Miyazaki films, and I wish the movie had more sequences like it.
After his mother dies in the fire, Mahito is sent to the countryside to live with his new stepmom. The theme of a child moving to the countryside to see family reminded me of When Marnie Was There. The problem is that we never really see Mahito overcome his grief or develop an emotional bond with his stepmom. I wasn’t moved to tears the same way I was with Anna in Marnie. Mahito’s arc to accepting his stepmother is thinly plotted, and lacks the emotional reward of, say, Chihiro in Spirited Away.
After skipping school due to a self-inflicted injury, Mahito finds a secret passage into a new world. He is guided there by a tricksy Heron-man who is the poor man’s version of Jigo from Princess Mononoke. They are on a journey to save his stepmother from being devoured by man-eating parakeets (though we later learn that they don’t eat pregnant women). The parakeets are by far the funniest part of the film. Their designs resemble Jim Henson’s Muppets, and their slapstick antics felt more Looney Tunes than anime.
There’s also a lovely sequence on the sea, with ships that drift towards the afterlife. Here, Mahito meets a young Kiriko, a tough sailor who in his time will be an old maid at his stepmom’s house. He helps her to catch and gut a giant fish. The scene where they slice it open, causing its colorful organs burst out is delightfully gory. Mahito also meets a preteen version of his mother, which had the potential to be interesting, but their relationship barely touched upon.
Ultimately, How Do You Live? can’t stand on its own two feet. The viewer keeps getting distracted by the blatant Ghibli retreads: Doors that take you to different places and times (Howl’s Moving Castle), cute white spirits (Princess Mononoke), an independent young woman who helps the hero through a tough time (Kiki’s Delivery Service), the child who has to save a parent in a bizzare new world (Spirited Away), the lonely child interacting with a young version of a deceased relative (When Marnie Was There), etc. I wouldn’t mind all of this if we had actually spent a little more time to breathe in this fantasy world, but we’re only here to visit. This is a tour, not an adventure.
I loved Miyazaki’s previous film, The Wind Rises. It was a perfect end to an illustrious career that meditated on the nature of creativity, and how that creativity can be exploited in an unjust world. If anything, that film did a far better job of grappling with the question of “how do you live?” than this one. Miyazaki is a great artist and his legacy will endure long after his death, but even the masters have limits to their powers, and I only hope that he truly retires after this one.
