How does a film that shunned all advertising break records in Japan, end up No 1 at the US box office, and become a serious awards contender? Because it’s a Hayao Miyazaki film. If you don’t know the name, make no mistake – this is a big deal. Miyazaki is the talismanic co-founder of Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli, and his latest film, The Boy and the Heron, is finally out in the UK. Up until the day of the film’s premiere, no one had seen a frame of it. In other hands, this marketing strategy would be tantamount to commercial suicide. For Miyazaki, the mere fact of his involvement was advertising enough.
Few artists have ever loomed quite so large over an art form as Miyazaki in the world of animation. His films – lyrical, soulful, endlessly imaginative fantasies – have been pivotal in bringing anime to audiences around the world. His are the films that have made Ghibli a phenomenon: the elegiac epic Princess Mononoke, in which human industrialists go to war with the gods of the forest; the playful, contemplative children’s fantasy My Neighbour Totoro, in which two young sisters encounter a benevolent spirit while their mother is ailing; the utterly unique, Oscar-winning Spirited Away, in which a girl mixes with the creatures and ghouls within a paranormal bathhouse. While other animators have also directed films under the Ghibli umbrella – most notably the late studio co-founder and Miyazaki’s erstwhile mentor Isao Takahata – it is Miyazaki’s name that is synonymous with the studio and its magic.
