Kimitachi wa do ikiru ka

The work of Miyazaki Hayao is so beloved that we always fear his next film might be his last. With KIMITACHI WA DO IKIRU KA, the dream-weaving director returns in full force to spin a beguiling and poignant story about the fear and wonder of finding one’s place in the world. Mahito has struggled since his mother’s death in a fire during World War II; his father remarries and moves the family to the countryside (working, like Miyazaki’s father, as a manufacturer). There Mahito finds a portal in an abandoned tower that leads to a parallel realm, inhabited by a civilisation of giant royalist parakeets, a no-nonsense pirate and an ancient demigod, to name just a few. Working through his grief, the boy comes to embrace the challenges posed by his adventures. Miyazaki’s hand-drawn animation remains unparalleled at folding us into the slipstream of imagination and fleshing out characters with idiosyncratic detail and behaviour; no matter how fantastical, they feel like they’re simply going about their lives in front of us. KIMITACHI WA DO IKIRU KA brings the perspective of a Prospero-like master filmmaker to a boy’s hard journey through innocence and experience. (Nicolas Rapold)

Miyazaki Hayao: THE CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO (1979), NAUSICAÄ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND (1984), CASTLE IN THE SKY (1986), MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO (1988), KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE (1989), PORCO ROSSO (1992), PRINCESS MONONOKE (1997), SPIRITED AWAY (2001), HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE (2004), PONYO (2008), THE WIND RISES (2013)