A film you enjoyed recently

A film I watched recently and really enjoyed is an animated Japanese film called The Boy and the Heron, by Hayao Miyazaki. I watched it about a month ago on a streaming platform at home with my younger sister, on a rainy Friday evening.

It's about a young boy called Mahito who loses his mother in a fire during the Second World War. He moves to the countryside with his father, and there a strange talking heron leads him into a magical world where he meets odd creatures and versions of people from his past. It sounds like a children's story, but it's really about grief, growing up and deciding what kind of person you want to be.

I enjoyed it for a few reasons. The first is the animation. It's all hand-drawn, and some scenes, like the fire at the beginning or a sea full of tiny floating spirits, were so beautiful that we paused the film just to look at them. Second, it doesn't explain everything. Some parts were confusing, and afterwards my sister and I spent nearly an hour discussing what they meant, which I loved. And third, it made me think about my own life, especially the idea that you can't avoid painful things, but you can choose how you respond to them.

To be honest, I'm not usually a fan of animated films, but this one completely changed my mind.