How Do You Live: Autobiography of the Artist
“Create a world without malice, and full of beauty.”
Much has been said about the works of Hayo Miyazaki. In 1985, Miyazaki co-founded Studio Ghibli with Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki, establishing one of the most celebrated animation studios in the world. In 2002, Miyazaki won his first Academy Award for Spirited Away and was the first non-English film to win in the best animated feature category. He was nominated in the same category twice thereafter but did not win again till his fourth nomination for The Boy and the Heron in 2024.
In The Boy and Heron, Hayao Miyazaki explores his life through high fantasy. He explores in particular his relationships with the other co-founders of Studio Ghibli. Suzuki forms the basis of the heron character and in many ways the begrudging friendship between the heron and the child protagonist, Mahito, frames the film. The importance of this relationship is what justifies the english title of The Boy and Heron. However, its original japanese title is Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka which translates to english as How Do You Live? and this question is the lynchpin of the narrative.
How do you live after death? How do you live as an artist? How do you live during war? How do you live in conflict? How do you live to honor nature? How do you live your own life? The film is one of so many questions, yet so few answers. The Boy and the Heron is a summary of Hayao Miyazaki’s life of his own making, and his answer to the question, How Do You Live?, he doesn’t know… you just do.
It is easy to see Miyazaki as both the child protagonist, Mahito, in the film and the wise elder, Grand Uncle, simultaneously. Miyazaki made this film while grieving his mentor, Takahata, who was the one to first discover his talent and we can see him in the figure of the Grand Uncle looking to pass on his legacy. Simultaneously Miyazaki’s relationship with his son, Goro Miyazaki, is reflected through the film and Mahito. As Miyazaki has to face the aging of himself and his collaborators, especially after the death of his mentor, he has to reckon with what will become of his legacy and the studio he built. Truly, Mahito can be anyone in the audience and the Grand Uncle is any and every great master artist of a passing time.
The film received glowing reviews as any work from the mind of Miyazaki is expected to receive. However, people who liked and disliked the film both tended to agree that they did not quite ‘get’ the film, at least not on the first viewing. Even the creators of the film, Miyazaki’s collaborators as well as himself, have been quoted on their confusion on what they were developing as they were actively creating it. So I understand I’m in the minority when I say I came out of the theater after my first viewing having felt completely understood. The film captured the essence of what it is to create and live as an artist. This is not something that can be conveyed in empirical measures, or through Aristotle’s three act structure, because life does not follow such clean guidelines. To tell a reality of life we sometimes must travel into the fantasy dreams which mimics the endless meandering of life. This is what The Boy and the Heron captures effervescently.
I implore those watching The Boy and the Heron, either for the first time or fourth, to not be too distracted by trying to actively understand or “get” the film. Just allow it to unfold before you. In Miyazaki's autobiographical ode to his life’s work he asks his audience, as he asks himself, How Do You Live?
Writer: Allyson Abarca
