The Boy And The Heron (Kimitachi wa dô ikiru ka - How do you live?)

 Hayao Miyazaki's failure to retire fortunately continues. With this movie he's now reached twelve features, all of them at least good, half of them masterpieces. This one, I'm still digesting- the story didn't quite bowl me over as Spirited Away, Nausicaa, Mononoke or Porco Rosso did when I first watched them, but time will tell if I warm up to it. Technically, though, it's staggering; Visually and aurally this thing is motherfucking luscious.

Miyazaki 1, Hitchcock 0

 This is made crystal clear in a prelude in Tokyo in 1943, where twelve-year old Mahito (Soma Santoki) loses his mother to an allied bombing; the animation is impossibly fluid, beautiful and impressionistic as the haze from the fires mixes with the boy's turmoil.

 A year later his father has remarried - to his late wife's sister - and they move to her palatial estate out in the countryside. Mahito is understandably perturbed about that, and he spends most of the first act a sullen mess, trying to avoid his family and getting into trouble at school.

 But he can't get away from an old heron who haunts the local lake; It keeps hounding him, showing him a derelict tower in a field nearby, and later it starts taunting him verbally (with Masaki Suda's voice), telling him he can take him to his lost mother.
 Mahito being one prickly customer, he crafts a bow and arrow to kill the Heron; But when his stepmother disappears into the woods he's forced to follow the bird into the tower, and into another world, even though he knows it's a trap.

 From there on it's a series of fantastic adventures as Mahito searches for his mother and his near-mythical great uncle, the creator of the tower and keeper of the worlds within. He meets the residents of the new land, making allies with the heron and a couple of women who may or may not correspond to people in the real world, and enemies of mobs of sentient pelicans and parakeets.

 It's a lot of fun, but a little episodic, the connections a bit threadbare. There's a powerful story serving as a backbone to the film, one recognizably lined with Miyazaki's thoughtfulness, warmth and kindness (along with some autobiographical touches). Takes a while to emerge, though, and even when the narrative thrust is more or less clear, some events still feel a bit random, the convergence of its themes and threads a slightly unwieldy mess* (though always an entertaining one).

 And you can't argue with the presentation. I've never seen a traditionally animated movie so tactile - everything moves beautifully, making it a joy just to watch two people board a rickshaw, or the simple act of a boy putting on some pants (hello, FBI!).
 The lush backdrops are absolutely gorgeous, inviting and imaginative, and the character designs are something else; Just watching the parakeets go about their business had me laughing. The inestimable Joe Hisaishi provides a beyond lovely soundtrack, at first piano-driven and then incorporating more orchestral touches.

 From an aesthetic point of view, this is the most beautiful animated movie I've seen in... well, possibly ever. It really is that good- reportedly the most expensive movie made in Japan, and that's easy to believe.

 There's just so much to like here, even without taking into account how startingly vivid everything looks. Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is another classic. Let's hope he gets to do another one.

*: Just like my writing, except for the 'slightly'. Heyoooo!