Maybe it’s because I watched this three hours after a funeral, but this made a ton of sense to me and resonated with me a lot.
I do wonder if there’s some kind of informational gap between the sub and dub (I watched the sub), because I’ve read a number of comments/reviews after the leaving the theater that claim certain aspects were confusing and disjointed. And in a number of cases (not all, but many), I feel like the movie actually did tell you what was going on, either in the literal dialogue or the visual subtext. There is definitely room for interpretation and the insertion of your own life though.
Ultimately this is a meditation on grief and moving on. People are not “boring” or “emotionless” when they’re grieving. Grief turns you into a shell, a husk, and you have to fight your way out. Sometimes while wrapped up in grief, you don’t want to do the right things, but you do them anyways because you know you have to. You might not do it with a smile on your face or a bounce in your step, but you do it nonetheless, because the ones you grieve for would want nothing less from you.
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@sztomi I think you're right that the issue is probably taking the story at face value. I've seen so many questions asking about things like the point of the heron, and the heron is just...grief! His entire relationship with Mahito is how it can feel wrestling grief. You feel grief banging on your head, trying to get in (the heron walking on the roof, tapping on the window, and trying to squeeze in via the window); you hear grief raising irrational questions in your head ("You never saw the body! She's still alive!"); you try to beat your grief down and cut it apart (Mahito tries with a sword and his bow), but it'll usually just break you up and spit you back out; you conjure up fake images of the deceased in your mind that melt away as soon as your daydream ends (the body on the couch); but eventually you have to learn to befriend your grief and live with it so that you can eventually forget it.
I proposed the sub-dub gap as being the cause, but the more I think about it, it's definitely people taking the fantasy trappings at face value and missing the underlying themes. It's like if you read The Odyssey or Dante's Inferno (two very relevant works to The Boy and the Heron actually!) at their face value as a story about a soldier going home or a guy walking through parts of hell, when they're both very clearly allegories for much more than that.
Maybe it’s because I watched this three hours after a funeral, but this made a ton of sense to me and resonated with me a lot.
I do wonder if there’s some kind of informational gap between the sub and dub (I watched the sub), because I’ve read a number of comments/reviews after the leaving the theater that claim certain aspects were confusing and disjointed. And in a number of cases (not all, but many), I feel like the movie actually did tell you what was going on, either in the literal dialogue or the visual subtext. There is definitely room for interpretation and the insertion of your own life though.
Ultimately this is a meditation on grief and moving on. People are not “boring” or “emotionless” when they’re grieving. Grief turns you into a shell, a husk, and you have to fight your way out. Sometimes while wrapped up in grief, you don’t want to do the right things, but you do them anyways because you know you have to. You might not do it with a smile on your face or a bounce in your step, but you do it nonetheless, because the ones you grieve for would want nothing less from you.
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@philoumenos I fully agree. I don't think the confusion is due to differences between sub and dub, though I also watched the sub. It's more due to trying to follow the story at face value vs. following the allegory it presents.
