It’s happening again. Back in 2013, Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Wind Rises” was pegged as the final film of the celebrated “Spirited Away” and “Princess Mononoke” director. If followed multiple occasions in the past in which Miyazaki indicated he would be retiring, only to ‘unretire’ shortly after.
For years his post-“Wind Rises” retirement pledge seemed to hold until he ‘unretired’ and began work on a new film which has since been revealed to be “The Boy and the Heron”. That film has been playing the Fall festival circuit to rave reviews.
Up until today, the new film has again been dubbed Miyazaki’s last film though there’s been plenty of scepticism about that. Turns out it was warranted as Studio Ghibli’s head of public relations Junichi Nishioka tells Eli Glasner of CBC (via Crunchyroll) that Miyazaki is already in the early stages of developing his next movie and has been “coming into the office with new ideas”.
Miyazaki is 82 years old and, over the years, has increasingly brought in other animators for his films as he focused on directing. However he goes about it, it seems as though he’ll keep doing his passion until he is no longer able.
Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro introduced “The Boy and the Heron” at Toronto thid week and delivered high praise for Miyazaki-san’s work. Here’s a transcript of a segment of his speech (via Deadline):
“Animation is film, and tonight’s film goes beyond that. Animation is hard. We are privileged enough to be living in a time where Mozart is composing symphonies. Miyazaki san is a master of that stature, and we are so lucky to be here…He has changed the medium that he started in, revolutionized it, proved over and over again that is a tremendous work of art.
Miyazaki, in my estimation, is the greatest director of animation ever, and he has made his films as full as dialogues and questions as he is. These are not easy films, but these are films that portray him so intimately, that you feel you’re having a conversation with him.”
“The Boy and the Heron” will arrive in U.S. cinemas on December 8th.
