When Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki first announced that The Boy and the Heron would be his final film, they turned to an unusual way of marketing: no marketing at all.
Up until its release date, The Boy and the Heron– Miyazaki’s first film in over a decade– was given no promotional material, trailer or otherwise, except for a single poster. Studio Ghibli withheld a synopsis and even a listing of the cast in order to create an air of mystery around the film.
Finally, the film was released on Friday and the world finally was allowed to know what story the film told.
“Every frame of this film feels like a separate work of art — one that only becomes grander when put together as part of the greater whole,” said a reviewer from Anime News Outlet. “It’s a film you could watch a hundred times and still discover new things in the background of any given scene. It cannot be understated how the little visual details take the film from real to surreal — like a heron flashing a toothy grin or wooden dolls vibrating as if in sympathetic laughter. It’s an animation tour de force unlike anything seen in the past decade.”
The Boy and the Heron will be available to watch in North America later this year, according to Studio Ghibli’s American distributor GKIDS.
Leave a Comment