It’s fun to imagine the screening for Studio Ghibli executives and creative staff where they realised that Miyazaki Hayao’s ‘last’ film involves an ageing wizard who allows the world he’s created to crumble because he can’t find a worthy successor.
There’s a dynamism and fluidity to Miyazaki’s films, not only in the animation but in the porousness of the boundaries between worlds, between fairy tale and dream logic. The character designs in this are simply incredible, conveying entire characters and histories at a glance from the very earnest Mahito (Santoki Sōma) to the variety of greedy and deceitful birds that Mahito meets on his journey. It’s slow to get going, slower than SPIRITED AWAY, but once it does, it depicts such a rich world.