It took Hayao Miyazaki seven years to complete his The Boy and the Heron“, a grueling journey by an artist at the twilight of his life. The story of how the film was painstakingly made is beautifully recounted in “Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron”, a two-hour NHK documentary which closely follows the daily chores of the master during these seven arduous years. The film conveys the sheer dedication and obsession of a man who lives, and will die, for his work.
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From 2017 to 2023, director Kaku Harakawa filmed Miyazaki hard at work, mostly staying within the premises of Studio Ghibli thanks to the exclusive access granted to the filmmaker (who previously directed “Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki” and the four-part TV special “10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki”, already for NHK). From Miyazaki’s workstation in the office to a house on the lot where he often takes naps in the afternoons, drinks coffee and smokes a cigarette or two, the camera is always there somewhere to record the big and small moments, the joy and sadness of long years of difficult work marked by Covid-19 and, repeatedly, mourning.
Death does emerge as the main theme of the documentary. Miyazaki was already 73 when he completed “The Wind Rises”, supposedly his last movie, and is seen announcing in 2013 his retirement to the world. Yet, from the very beginning, it is clear that the director can hardly live without a pencil in his hands and working on a new project. Does he still have time, however, to make one last movie? And, since the years go by and the project only crawls forward, will he live long enough to see the finished film?
Check also this interview
This question haunts a documentary shot almost in real time, from when the project got off the ground until it finally reached completion. As time goes on, death strikes regularly, as Miyazaki’s old collaborators and friends, who have all reached old age, die in close succession. The camera is always there to record his reaction to the news, his resulting melancholy and confrontation of his own mortality, which will all inform the making of “The Boy and the Heron”.
The most significant death by far is that of Isao Takahata, the other pillar of Studio Ghibli who was responsible for masterpieces like “Grave of the Fireflies” or “The Tale of the Princess Kaguya”. Miyazaki seems to have had a complicated relationship with Takahata, describing him at one point as a competitor and rival, and playfully criticizing his films. But what quickly emerges is how much, in reality (clearly Miyazaki should not always be taken at his word), he greatly admired Takahata’s movies and looked up to him, seeing the director as his superior in creativity and as his mentor. The documentary intercuts old pictures and video clips of younger Miyazaki and Takahata together at various points in their careers, emphasizing how close the two men were for decades, even if they seem to never have properly acknowledged any kind of open friendship between them.
Now Miyazaki is almost literally haunted by the ghost of Takahata, seeing him everywhere. Looking around for his lighter, he assumes that Takahata’s ghost is playing tricks with him; when witnessing a thunderstorm, he smilingly assumes that Takahata has become the god of thunder. Although he is surrounded by colleagues and friends, Miyazaki comes across as a man who has genuine trouble distinguishing the line separating reality from fantasy and is obsessed with the presence of death around him. The documentary is paced by a countdown that marks the number of days remaining before “The Boy and the Heron” is released, but one gets a sense that it also symbolizes Miyazaki’s shrinking remaining time on this earth (a shorter version of the documentary was released on NHK as “2399 Days with Hayao Miyazaki & Studio Ghibli”).
The largely observational documentary intercuts this footage with shots from what would become “The Boy and the Heron”, especially early in the film when the editing fast cuts from scenes at Ghibli to shots of the movie. This emphasizes how much Miyazaki’s ultimate film is a reflection of and a metaphor for his own life and his sense of mourning and melancholy as it slowly draws to a close.
As the title of the documentary points out, Miyazaki projected himself into Mahito, dramatizing his own personal memories from childhood and his own mortality (“you stink of death” is a line in the film which Miyazaki is seen to particularly enjoy). The heron draws largely from producer Toshio Suzuki, a genial figure who looms large in the documentary and who brings welcome comic relief at several points. As for the Wizard and mentor figure, he is Takahata, and the camera shows how difficult it is for Miyazaki to draw him and come to terms with his passing away. There is a sense there that making the film becomes a way for Miyazaki to process his loss and accept the inevitability of death.
A final strength of the documentary is to show some of the technical aspects of the animation process, and how much of a collective endeavor “The Boy and the Heron” was. It is clear that Miyazaki is a diminished man, whose increasingly forgetful mind (“my mind is broken”, he laments at one point) will not allow him to work as efficiently as he once did. So while he drew by hand the storyboards to give the film’s blueprints, we see how other artists, first of all Takeshi Honda, took charge of the animation process. Miyazaki is not always so comfortable with this arrangement, but it does eventually work, leading him to marvel at Honda’s “modern” style of animation. This helps characterize filmmaking at Ghibli as a collective endeavor, one marked by obvious respect for Miyazaki but one also made possible by the great pool of talent working there (NHK produced this film as part of their Professional Work Style series of documentaries).
“Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron” is an exceptional insight into the work and psyche of the animation master at a crucial point in his career. Beyond the making of his latest movie, it shines a light on the thought and creative processes of a perfectionist artist who Suzuki and the others characterize as incapable of dealing with normal, everyday life. By the end of the documentary, you have no difficulties in believing that, yet in a sense there is the strong feeling that Miyazaki, in his own whimsical way, has a better grasp on life – and death – than most of us. There is a lot to learn from “The Boy and the Heron”, and a lot from the story of its making as well.
