Rebecca and I indulged in a very, very lazy Saturday. I basically went a little square eyed from playing video games all day (ah, I miss those kinda days). But I needed to blow the cobwebs out of my mental rafters so we took a walk... To an even bigger screen to watch The Boy and the Heron, the latest film from Studio Ghibli.
It brings me no joy to say this one fell a little flat for me. The imagery is undeniably stunning however. The dream world has a painterly quality, evocative of a wealth of moods and textures. Death and rebirth are the most obvious themes the film harks towards, The Isle of Death makes a very subtle early apperance and you can read deeply into almost any other of the etherial environments. (And hey, if that's your bag, all the more power to ya.)
Despite all that, the film fails to cash in on the vibe it cultivates. The hero doesn't change, nor meaningfully influenced after what should be an identity defining journey. No lessons are learnt in this space, stuff happens and then we're whisked off to the nex scenario. It's a conveyor belt of beauty and imagination, but without anything propping up that beauty, it just registers as superficial.
+ points for the parakeets
- points for a woefully abrupt ending.
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