Not a single empty seat in the large Kursaal auditorium. The expectation was maximum to see The Boy and the Heron, the new and probably last animated gem by Hayao Miyazaki, who tonight receives from a virtual distance - at 82 years old he no longer usually travels outside of Japan - a more than well-deserved Donostia award to his long career in the world of animation.
The inaugural film by the co-founder of Studio Ghibli has raised the curtain on the 71st edition of Zinemaldia to numerous applause. Among the audience, several groups of Japanese with a knowing smile at the end of the screening, with long applause. And the author of such emblematic and popular films as Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke, has created his most personal masterpiece around life, death, pain, loss, the mother-child relationship and friendship in an emotional story with numerous fantastic elements into which Miyazaki himself has poured part of his experiences as a child. Not in vain, the film, with two hours of footage, is inspired by the novel of the same name by Genzaburo Yoshino that Hayao's mother gave her in her youth.
We are faced with a complex and poetic story that invites us to immerse ourselves in other parallel worlds and that arrives a decade after his previous work, The Wind Rises, also with biographical overtones and which was supposed to be his retirement from cinema. With Miyazaki you never know and, after announcing his retirement on a few occasions, it seems that he has new ideas in the works, as confirmed by Junichi Nishioka, vice president of Studio Ghibli after the film's premiere at the Toronto festival. "In what way? "What state will the world and the minds of viewers be in when they receive this new film?" Mizayaki asked himself when planning the film seven years ago. "Isn't the world in a state of flux? We could be headed for war or catastrophe, or perhaps both."
Set during the Second World War, the protagonist is Mahito, a boy marked by the death of his mother during a fire in a Tokyo hospital who undertakes a new stage with his father in a large country estate cared for by several very maids. old women His aunt now occupies his father's heart. She is the spitting image of his mother. A beautiful and attentive woman who hopes to give birth to her first child soon.
The boy doesn't fit in at school and notices a very peculiar gray heron that is chasing him and talking to him. He cheekily tells her that his mother is not dead and to come with him if he wants to check it out. When Mahito discovers a magical tower built by an ancestor who apparently vanished after reading many books and going crazy, he will enter another dimension, where he will discover a marine world with gigantic parakeets that eat humans and a passageway with infinite doors, as well as some beings. that will help you mature suddenly.
Quality cinema to start a Donostia festival that starts with the company of rain and wind. Vértigo films will be in charge of releasing The Boy and the Heron in Spanish cinemas starting on October 27.
