The Boy and the Heron [2023]

 What immediately arrests one about The Boy and the Heron – the first film in a decade by legendary octogenarian Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, who came out of his retirement to make this, and the 25^th feature production by Studio Ghibli – are its dazzling, painstakingly handcrafted and decidedly anachronistic 2D artwork. Miyazaki was heavily inspired by the 1937 Japanese novel How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino (the film’s original title is, in fact, a direct nod to the book); he also self-consciously looked back at his own childhood days and filmography while conceiving this story, which made it semi-autobiographical and self-reflexive. It begun against the harrowing backdrop of WW2 as young Hisako loses his mother to a tragic fire accident. As the war rages on, he finds himself displaced to tranquil rural environs when his father, an ecstatic manufacturer of fighter planes for the military, marries his sister-in-law and relocates to her large estate. There, haunted by his memories and engulfed in debilitating grief, Hisako finds himself lost amidst his new mom and a group of eccentric old ladies, and becomes even more withdrawn upon facing bullying at the local school. That’s when he encounters a speaking, anthropomorphic Heron who mocks him out of his stupor and provokes him into a parallel world – filled with blazing phantasmagoria and outlandish creatures – where he must overcome fantastical obstacles to save his old and new moms. Wildly imaginative and heavily metaphorical – especially around its underlying evocations of past, present and future – the film took an uninhibited turn after having begun on a low-key note, which made it seem messy and overdone on occasions, its affecting mix of loss, melancholy and hope notwithstanding.

Director: Hayao Miyazaki

Genre: Animation/Fantasy/Adventure/Coming of Age

Language: Japanese

Country: Japan

The Adventures of Tintin [2011]

The Adventures of Tintin is a fine illustration of why Steven Spielberg is considered an apotheosis by movie-goers around the world. It would be easy to dismiss his live-action animation featuring the legendary and ageless Belgian journalist as a movie devoid of any great intelligence or cinematic depth or character arc. But, in similar veins to some of his other blockbusters like, say, Jurassic Park, it would be pretentious or dishonest of me to summarily dismiss it or ignore its undeniable entertainment-quotient. I’ve been an ardent fan of Tintin comic books right since when I was a kid, and that was enough to pull me to the theatre to watch its cinematic rendition. However, I was in for a surprise when, shortly into the movie I realized that, unlike my earlier understanding that Crab with the Golden Claws and Secret of the Unicorn have been adapted “as it is”, they have been fused into a single story by the director, with the finale of Red Rackam’s Treasure thrown in too. Though this angered the Tintin-aficionado in me, it was not difficult to appreciate the director’s genius at extracting the best out of the two disparate books and turning the ensuing storyline into a fun-filled adventure-soaked joyride. Spielberg once again displayed his adeptness at the technological side of movie-making, by making this a sumptuous visual splendour filled with enough brilliant animation effects, great set-ups and great editing, which, combined with the kinetic pacing and light-hearted humour, kept me thoroughly engaged. The sequence where the inimitable Captain Haddock animatedly chronicles the terrific duel between Sir Francis Haddock and Red Rackam, did bring fond back memories of the hours I’ve spent with Hergé’s immortal creation as a young boy.








Director: Steven Spielberg
Genre: Animation/Adventure/Comedy
Language: English
Country: US

Kung Fu Panda [2008]

DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda is a 3D animation movie that is easy to like and equally easy to brush aside while critically appraising it. If animation films are meant to provide wholesome family entertainment through liberal use of slapstick humour along with its subtler variation, and a free-flowing plot, Kung Fu Panda, can be proclaimed as an unequivocal success. But if one were to derive more intellectual satisfaction along with the entertainment dose, the movie would qualify as no more than kitsch meant only for underdeveloped brains. But, whatever be the agenda of evaluating a film, the film sure managed to keep one engaged through its crisp length and fun-filled action sequences. The tale of a pot-bellied panda’s journey from his father’s noodle shop to a legendary kung-fu warrior (a dream that he always harboured), has been helped enormously through the all-star voiceover cast. Jack Black ( as Po the Panda), Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan have all managed to make their respective characters eminently enjoyable. Now, the plot might be all too predictable, but the director has been innovative and creative in making this tale filled with sequences that are nothing short of spectacular and even an air of unpredictability. And there’s no doubting the fabulous animation work that must have been done behind the camera.








Directors: John Stevenson, Mark Osborne
Genre: Animation/Comedy/Action
Language: English
Country: US

Up [2009]

Film critics and cinegoers have called Up a rousing success, and have named it, along with Wall-E, as one of the great masterpieces of modern cinema. I wouldn’t go that far; but yes, there’s no doubting the fact that it happens to be one of the most noteworthy outputs from PIXAR, the ever-dependable makers of jaw-dropping 3-D animation. The tale of Carl, a former balloon salesman, now in the twilight of his life, who undertakes the journey of a lifetime in order to fulfill a dream that he shared with his wife, that of exploring South America, is, at the end of the day, still a movie aimed principally for kids. Agreed that it contains the “adult” themes of ageing, loss, unfulfilled dreams, and broken families, but at its heart Up is essentially the kind of movie meant to engage the viewers, lift their spirits up and provide a whole lot of fun and entertainment in the process. And in that sense it is quite a success because fun and engaging it certainly is. But despite its solid, old-fashioned tale of fantasy and adventure, what would remain longest with the viewers is the first quarter of the movie which shows how Carl, as a kid, met with his future-wife, and then, through an extended and extremely poignant silent sequence, we are given a brief preview of the journey covered by Carl and his wife from youth to old age, through various moments of love, joy and grief.








Director: Pete Doctor & Bob Peterson
Genre: Animation/Adventure/Fantasy
Language: English
Country: US

WALL-E [2008]

WALL-E is rated by many a film critic as Pixar’s best work till date. Pixar has established such a reputation with its groundbreaking behind-the-scenes work that one has almost come to take technical virtuosity in their movies for granted. Hence, suffice it to say, WALL-E doesn’t really surprise in that its 3-D animation is a visual delight. Nonetheless, it still managed to be exhilarating by slightly raising its already exalted standards. But what really interested me most was the level of maturity displayed. In fact, the first half-hour of the movie, which is sans any vocals, is, on one hand, a unique and enthralling visual poetry in motion, and on the other, a quietly disturbing view of a dystopian, post-apocalyptic future where the earth is filthy, desolate and uninhabitable. All we see is ‘Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth Class’, aka WALL-E, a Chaplinesque robot, quietly going about compacting garbage, and striving to preserve few moments of solace and serenity in its otherwise mundane existence. And then he (it) falls in love with an Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, resulting in some hilarious gags. Only when ‘humans’ come into the picture does the movie veer towards a cartoonish setting and a more traditional kind of storytelling, which is even heavy-handed at times, thus causing (quite regrettably) the initial brilliance and the ensuing wonderment to sag considerably.







Director: Andrew Stanton
Genre: Animation/Comedy/Satire/Sci-Fi/Adventure
Language: English
Country: US

Waltz With Bashir (Vals Im Bashir) [2008]

Persepolis and Waltz With Bashir, released one year apart, provided the perfect one-two sucker punch to those who strongly believed animation movies are only for kids. While being told over a drink by an old friend of a recurring nightmare, Ari Folman, the movie’s director, suddenly realizes that memories of his military service during Israel’s war with Lebanon in 1982 are sketchy at best. Made in the form of a semi-documentary, what follows is a recapitulation of the disturbing events in an attempt to recover his lost memory. Right from the stunning opening sequence of 26 vicious dogs running through the streets, till the grim climax (though, in my opinion, the actual war footage could have been done without), the movie never ceases to enthrall. The arresting visuals – brilliant, heavily stylized artwork accentuated by bright, mesmerizing palettes – managed to juxtapose with amazing ease a sense of immediacy (of the on-field violence) with striking hallucinatory imagery (as a reaction to the characters’ memories of those events). The haunting and deeply surrealistic narrative has been superbly aided by an equally effective soundtrack. Waltz With Bashir is a truly unique and unforgettable piece of work.








Director: Ari Folman
Genre: Animation/Docu-Fiction/War Drama/Psychological Drama/Avant-Garde/Experimental
Language: Hebrew
Country: Israel

Persepolis [2007]

Directed by Marjane Satrapi, adapted from an acclaimed graphic novel of the same name written by her, and based on the fascinating life of the director/graphic novelist herself, Persepolis is an animated movie the kind of which I have never seen before. The general populace has come to expect popular animation movies to be bittersweet comedies; in that perspective Persepolis hasn’t just broken the mould, it has achieved something markedly revolutionary. Narrated through the POV of a girl growing up in the turbulent and regressive times of the violent Islamic revolution in Iran, this is a dark, intensely psychological, and surreal coming-of-age tale of the rebellious, free-spirited, outspoken and at times neurotic girl, who has seem ’em all – deeply idealistic socialist ideologies inspired from then Soviet Union, moral policing of Islamic fundamentalism, and the ultra-liberal world of Europe. Told through stark black and white imageries that instantly manage to captivate the viewers, a very personal narrative filled with deep humanism as well as acerbic satire, and freely peppered with nods to pop-culture, this is an irreverent and genre-bending work that should be remembered as a cornerstone for animation films.








Director: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud
Genre: Animation/Biopic/Psychological Drama/Political Satire/Social Satire/Avant-Garde/Experimental
Language: French
Country: France