Private Vocabulary, Public Resonance

The latest film by Hiyao Miyazaki, The Boy and the Heron, unfolds in unexpected and occasionally baffling ways. The film’s second half, especially, takes place in a world that appears to abide by a distinct narrative logic than that which viewers are familiar with. I discuss this as an instance of Miyazaki creating and working within a private, authentic vocabulary, as has been described in Existentialist and Pragmatist traditions. Specifically, I analyze its filmic language as an alloy of the memories, imagined possibilities, and losses of two of its characters, and why this depiction is so affecting.