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Directed by the renowned Hayao Miyazaki, The Boy and the Crane is the newest animated feature from Studio Ghibli. Recipient of awards around the world, is this the best fruit to come from the mind of this beloved old man? 735v2f
The story of The Boy and the Crane 6z3s53
Loosely based on the book “How Do You Live?”, written by Genzaburo Yoshino, one of the director's childhood favorites, The Boy and the Crane is the most recent production to be directed by him and produced by Ghibli. Despite announcing his retirement in 2013, it took a while for Miyazaki to get the itch and put pencil to paper again.
In this, which is the 14th feature film directed by him, celebrating his 83rd birthday in January this year, Miyazaki brings yet another wonderful and colorful world, taking yet another child protagonist on a journey into the incredible unknown. In many ways, The Boy and the Crane It resembles his greatest hits, in the way the sequence of events develops and in the absolute feeling of enchantment that those who watch it come to feel.
But there is something missing in it and, at the end of its almost 2 hours, the feeling that remains is that even in all its beauty and magnificent production, it seems that the director simply engaged the second gear and let it go, doing more of the same as the previous one. Ghibli is so well known for conceiving. Despite all its splendor, the animation ends up failing to deliver an engaging plot, even with all its message of overcoming carried by the boy Mahito.
The Boy and the Crane begins in Tokyo, in the fervor of the Second World War, a setting already well known to the director. In the middle of the night, the young man is woken up by the comings and goings of the house's servants, and soon discovers that the hospital where his mother was staying is on fire, the result of an Allied bombing. Even rushing to his rescue with his father, Mahito already knows that he has lost his mother, seeing her in his dreams after the tragic event.
Some time later, with his father, Mahito moves to the countryside, to live with his new stepmother, who is expecting a little brother or sister for the boy. His new home is an incredible mansion, with a large lake next door, where a huge heron lives. It doesn't take long for her to start messing with him, to the point where he decides to kill her. During his exploration while chasing the bird, Mahito discovers a mysterious, long-abandoned tower next to Natsuko's, his stepmother's, property, where all the friendly maids in the mansion warn him not to go.
The boy is determined to put an end to the heron's increasingly intense provocations, which become more bizarre with each visit, even talking to him. After a fight with his new schoolmates, Mahito suffers an injury and becomes bedridden, the perfect excuse to come up with a plan against the heron, but after seeing Natsuko go into the woods surrounding the tower and disappear, he leaves on his own. quest, which takes her back to the tower, where the strange bird reveals itself to be much more than that, showing her the way to a distant land.
From then on, we see Miyazaki doing what he does best: absurd, jaw-dropping scenarios, strange and fanciful creatures and, of course, charismatic characters who carry secrets wherever they go. Mahito, together with the heron, gets into increasingly strange situations on his journey until he comes face to face with a girl, Himi, with whom he teams up, as she knows where Natsuko is.
Throughout this journey, very little of a significant plot is developed, and the various situations that Mahito goes through have some weighty reason behind them. In them, it seems that Miyazaki turned on autopilot and simply delivered a sequence of amazing scenes, very fun to watch, but without much impact. However colorful and full of life they may be, drawing laughter from the audience in the full movie theater at times, they lack meaning.
Returning to the real world, the film simply ends. Mahito, apparently over his mourning for his mother, moves on with his life upon returning to Tokyo after the end of the war. And that's it. What is the message of the film? It ended up being up to those who watched it to discern what they absorbed from the film. Unlike other studio productions signed by Hayao, such as Lives in the Wind, there was no desire to go back and review the adventure. She was left with a void.
The cast of the film 3kn4b
The subtitled version of The Boy and the Crane brings a cast made up of young actors, such as Soma Santoki, a newcomer, and some well-known audiences from Japanese productions, such as Takuya Kimura, who participated in the manga adaptation Blade: The Blade of the Immortal to the cinema, playing Mahito's father.
As for the heron, the film features the interpretation of Masaki Suda, another common name among anime fans, who was present in both the films adapted from Gintama as for the future Assassination Classroom.
One of the main highlights of the Japanese cast is undoubtedly Shohei Hino, who gives the voice to the wise man that the boy meets in the other world. Hino has featured in some of Japan's main productions in recent years, culminating in the adaptation based on real events of the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster.
Actress Yoshino Kimura, who plays Mahito's stepmother Natsuko, shared the screen with "Beat" veteran Takeshi Kitano in the excellent and bizarre Glory to the Filmmaker, and was also part of the adaptation of the book by José Saramago, Ensaio about Cegueira, directed by Brazilian Fernando Meirelles, famous for City of God.
As for the dubbing of the American version, The Boy and the Crane features big Hollywood names such as Christian Bale (Mahito's father), Dave Bautista (King of the Parakeets), Willem Dafoe (Noble Pelican), Mark Hamill (Great Uncle), Florence Pugh (Kiriko, young version) and Robert Pattinson (The Crane).
The Brazilian version will feature the veteran of the dubbing industry, Guilherme Briggs, in the role of Great Uncle/The Sage, with Tarcisio Pureza, well known for his work in several animes, in the voice of Mahito's father and another big name in Brazilian dubbing. , Sérgio Moreno, the eternal Patrick Estrela, from Sponge Bob, like the Crane. Mahito, the protagonist, is played by Arthur Salerno, who voiced Charlie Brown in the recent CGI release.
Main highlights and curiosities 146l2o
Ironically, Miyazaki's new film has connections not only through the period in which it takes place, but also through some elements with the life story of Jiro Horikoshi, portrayed in the 2013 animation. Mahito's father moved from the big city to work in one of the many factories that assembled the infamous Zero fighters, designed by Horikoshi and, in the house where he lived, he stored parts from these planes when there was a need to protect them from enemy bombs.
Even so, the weight of Jiro's story is not repeated in that of The Boy and the Crane. There is no character development as you don't notice any change in the boy from the person he was at the beginning to the person he was at the end. It's not even close to what we saw with Chihiro or even Sophie, so The Animated Castle, who not only changes in personality, but also physically, over the course of his adventure. Mahito doesn't even radically change his behavior towards his stepmother, for whom he is polite and polite in the beginning, and who after everything he goes through when saving her, by chance, calls her mother again.
The film's values, then, end up being lost by themselves and even more so when we compare the work with other works by the director. Is it a story of overcoming suffering due to the loss of a loved one? There is no clear trajectory for the boy in this regard. What was so special about his entire unusual journey in this alternative world to cause a change in him, then? It's difficult to find an answer, and perhaps that's exactly what Miyazaki wants to convey with The Boy and the Crane, that you don't need to have something to take with you after watching it other than the entertainment, which yes, it exists, even if without much substance.
On the other hand, this goes somewhat against the Ghibli leader's trajectory, as all of his other films have this something, so why wouldn't this one? For a figure who has always been against pure fun in his work, even making a story that should be for children like My Neighbor Totoro or even Ponyo: A Friendship That Came From the Sea, vehicles for stories with themes with a certain depth, The Boy and the Crane is an exception, with its lack of a clear message.
Technical aspects of production 274m3u
In all other respects, however, the film is incredible. Animation, one of Ghibli's strengths, is at its best The Boy and the Crane, and the watercolors characteristic of the director's productions remain firm and strong in the film's many backgrounds.
The same can be said about the soundtrack, which brought master composer Joe Hisaishi back alongside Miyazaki, delivering exuberant musical themes, as usual.
The Boy and the Crane is a film that follows the tradition of Studio Ghibli by delivering a mind-boggling journey with absolutely beautiful, almost hypnotic visuals, which enchant everyone who watches it, and it is truly a production worthy of being seen on a cinema screen, with a good accompanying sound system.
Conclusion 60664y
This is the curse of having an opinion that goes against the majority, especially seeing how much the film is being honored at the awards, being one of the favorite requests for the Oscar, which will be Miyazaki's second, following A Viagem de Chihiro, awarded in 2003, if it wins Best Animation next month. It won't be an unfair award, given that it's not a bad animated feature, but it's far from being among Hayao Miyazaki's best.
Where to watch The Boy and the Crane? 5x4t4q
The Boy and the Crane enters the national cinema circuit throughout Brazil from today. There was a preview period organized by the distributor, Sato Company, in partnership with the Cinemark chain, which took place since the beginning of the month.
Sato also made the film available in its own cinema room, located in the Bunkyo building, at Rua São Joaquim, 381, in the Liberdade neighborhood, in São Paulo. There will also be screenings of the film while it is showing.
The indicative classification of The Boy and the Crane is 12 years old. The animated feature contains scenes with illicit drugs, sensitive themes and graphic violence.
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Source: Fandom Dub
Text proofread by: Pedro Bomfim
