The Boy and the Heron: An Anti-War and Anti-Nationalist Masterpiece
To me, not much cinema is truly anti-war. When I think of some of cinema's most iconic war tales, they generally tell stories of patriotism, heroes, villains and thrilling action. What I believe The Boy and the Heron does well to subvert these issues is present issues of war through subtext and metaphor to allow the audience to draw their own conclusions as to why these issues persist in the world of the film and our own. All of this can make parts of the film difficult to decipher, so I will attempt here to break it down. One of the key points to understanding Mahito and his journey is understanding the novel he reads, ‘How Do You Live?’. This is a real novel written by Genzaburō Yoshino in 1937. It is a book which was written with the intention of giving adolescents an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of life amidst the rising nationalism and militarism in Japan at the time, just before the Second World War was set to break out. In the film, Mahito is partway through reading...