"The Boy and the Bird" - Hayao Miyazaki's last instruction

On December 7, “The Boy and the Bird,” the first animated film by Hayao Miyazaki in 10 years, will be released in Russia. The master of Japanese animation planned to retire back in the late nineties, after the release of Princess Mononoke. But later he made four more full-length films and, it seemed, finally said goodbye to his fans in “The Wind Rises” - a programmatic statement about humanity, love and creativity.

In 2016, Miyazaki returned to work on new projects - a short film and the "most recent" feature film. The reason for the next return was touching to match the director. Japanese planned the final cartoon as a message for grandchildren: “Grandfather will go to another world, but leaves this work to you.”

It is therefore not surprising that Miyazaki's inspiration was his favorite childhood book, How Are You? Yoshino Genzaburo. This is the story of a schoolboy, Koperu, who, after the death of his father, goes to live with his uncle. The latter leaves notes to the hero every morning, in which he shares his views on the world and events in Koperu’s life. Ethical work for

teenagers - the ideal basis for a farewell lesson to grandchildren and viewers.

“The Boy and the Bird” is a fairy tale about how to survive war and the death of loved ones

The Boy and the Bird was released in Japan under the title How Are You? - This is a reference to the original work. At the same time, the cartoon is not at all an adaptation of a literary text - Genzaburo’s book rather sets the general tone of the story. Plus plays an important role in the life of the main character, teenager Mojito.

Mojito's mother dies in the bombing of a Tokyo hospital during World War II. A year later, the boy and his father leave the capital and move to the suburbs. At the country estate they are met by the younger sister of Mojito’s mother - she is expecting a child from the boy’s father and must marry him get married.

Mojito reluctantly communicates with his stepmother and grandmothers-maids in the house. It’s also not possible to make friends at school - not only does Mojito not particularly want this, but his classmates also attack him after class. But the boy's attention is attracted by an intrusive heron. At first she simply chases the boy. But later he opens his toothy beak and says that Mojito will be able to see his mother if he goes to an abandoned tower in the thicket of the forest. At first the boy refuses, but when his aunt-stepmother Natsuko disappears, he still takes the bow and heads straight into the trap. birds.

Plot-wise, “The Boy and the Bird” turned out to be a multi-level construction set, assembled from Miyazaki’s previous works. At first the film is reminiscent ofMy neighbor Totoro"- a touching story about children who left the city and discovered nature. Adjusted for mood. If the death of Satsuki and Mei's mother was a shocking blow towards the end of an otherwise good children's story, then Mojito loses a loved one already at the beginning of the film - and this sets the story a melancholic tone. And what helps to survive the trauma is a journey to another world under the guidance of spirits and ghosts - a plot that has already appeared, for example, in Spirited Away.

But similarities with other films do not make The Boy and the Bird worse. The magical worlds of Miyazaki are still captivating - even if the viewer has already seen them somewhere. The director's new film captivates not with its plot, but with the way it conveys the emotions of the hero and the atmosphere in which he exists. Somewhere in the background there is a war going on - the boy and his father are running away from it, but they still encounter its echoes. And inside Mojito lurks sadness for his mother and an unreasonable feeling of guilt for the fact that he could not save her.

The film has a lot of vivid images and beautiful locations.

Work on the cartoon took almost 7 years - and in the first 3.5 years, only 15% of it was drawn. The producers attributed this to Miyazaki's meticulousness. The director did not have a clear deadline, so he decided to completely (or almost completely) refuse computer graphics and draw each scene of the cartoon. A team of 60 animators helped him with this.

Because of this, The Boy and the Bird looks absolutely stunning. Of course, as always with Miyazaki, the appearance of the characters is impressive. The grandmothers here are a lot like Yubaba from Gone ghosts». But thanks to small details in appearance and facial expressions, they evoke not disgust, but tenderness and laughter. And the main merchandise of the cartoon will probably be the rounded “varavara” creatures. These are white mini-Totoros, which, after maturing in the other world, are born as children in the earthly world.

But the locations and backdrops of the cartoon deserve special attention. Some frames are directly copied, for example, from work Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin. And the general plans of nature and the new estate of the protagonist’s family can in some places easily be confused with landscapes from art galleries.

“The Boy and the Bird” is a bitter, but not without hope, reflection on the fate of the world

The director's final message to his grandchildren is formulated in a parallel world, where the hero finds himself through a mysterious tower. There, Mojito meets his great-grandfather, the creator of a magical world that visually resembles Miyazaki himself.

The great-grandfather shares his experiences with the boy. Like, the stone of the world is covered with moss, and its structure becomes more and more shaky - because it is rapidly being poisoned by evil. In the real world, where Mojito came from, there is a bloody world war going on. war. In the magical world, an army of armed parrots under the leadership of a decisive king is gaining strength. Because of this, the great-grandfather turns to his grandson with a request to accept his world as an inheritance and save it from destruction.

So Miyazaki again returns to thinking about creating beauty in a world filled with aggression and blood. In the previous, also supposedly final, full-length film, the director had already shown the story of a hero who watches in horror as his work becomes a murder weapon. In "The Boy and the Bird" this motif seems even more pessimistic and somewhat chaotic: a story about growing up and reconciling with loss of a loved one a person is suddenly penetrated by a stern military fatalism.

But still, Miyazaki gives the audience a happy ending and hope for the future. And again he comes to the thought that he once voiced: even in a burning world, a child should have a chance for a happy life. And the artist, apparently, has the right to create alternative worlds, much more attractive than reality. This is probably why the director has already announced work on the next, probably also the “last” film.