“The Boy and the Heron” has lovely animation, a beautiful soundtrack and a baffling story.

“The Boy and the Heron” is said to be the final film from Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki (Oscar recipient, animated feature, “Spirited Away,” 2001; Oscar nominee, animated feature: “Howl’s Moving Castle,” 2004, and “The Wind Rises,” 2014). Miyazaki will be 82 on Jan. 5, 2024.

Having seen “The Boy and the Heron,” I may not be alone in my befuddlement. After a February 2023 preview, a message from writer-director Hayao Miyazaki was read at the conclusion of the screening. “Perhaps you didn’t understand it. I myself don’t understand it,” Miyazaki stated.

In “The Boy and the Heron,” it’s 1943 during, as it’s apparently called in Japan, the Pacific War, also known as the Asia-Pacific War, or as Americans might know it, the Pacific Theater of World War II, fought in eastern Asia, the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean, from that fateful Sunday in Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, to the surrender of Japan, Sept. 2, 1945.

In “The Boy and the Heron,” Mahito Maki’s mother Hisako died in a fire at a hospital in Tokyo. Mahito’s father, Shoichi, a fighter plane canopy manufacturer, remarries the younger sister of his late wife. The family seeks refuge from the war at a country estate where they reside, along with several elderly women.

Mahito, chased by a gray heron, explores a mysterious tower built by his grand uncle. Inside the tower, the heron reveals himself to actually be a raspy-voiced old man. He takes Mahito into a bizarre alternative world, accessed in the tower. In the other world, which may be Mahito’s dream, they encounter strange creatures, including Warawara, bubble-like spirits; giant parakeets, led by the Parakeet King, and Mahito’s grand uncle, ruler of the alternate world.

The voice cast for “The Boy and the Heron” includes Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Ko Shibasaki, Aimyon, Yoshino Kimura, Takuya Kimura, Kaoru Kobayashi and Shinobu Otake. The film has English subtitles. That is the version that I saw.

A version of “The Boy and the Heron” has voices dubbed in English. The voice cast includes Christian Bale, Dave Bautista, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Karen Fukuhara, Mark Hamill, Robert Pattinson and Florence Pugh.

The animation genre of “The Boy and the Heron” is known as limited animation. Many of the interior and exterior backgrounds are lush and detailed. There are paintings of living rooms, bedrooms and landscapes. Each frame of the film is a work of art.

The characters in “The Boy and the Heron” are similar to the simplified line drawings of the large-eyed figures in anime films and manga comic books. A single line may represent a nose or a mouth on a face. The mouths emote with a minimum of synchronous movement.

There is limited interaction between lead characters. If, for example, there are three characters in a dialogue scene, when one of the characters speaks, the other two characters are static, with typically the response a tilt or movement of the face.

The effect is calming and quaint. It’s as if one is at an exhibition in an art gallery and the paintings in the frames come to life before one’s eyes.

The animators use imaginative angles, zooms and pans, as if their drawings are in-camera. The colors are soft and pastel, in almost Paint By Number colors. The effect is that of naive or child-like drawings, harking back through the decades to the earliest days of animation.

“The Boy and the Heron” is an epic. The action scenes are frenetic, dizzying and somewhat overwhelming. In these, there’s a pell-mell pace, with action scenes plunging head-long, frequently in a flash style that epitomizes anime and has influenced the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The animation in “The Boy and the Hero” apparently combines Computer Generated Animation and hand-drawn animation by a team of some 60 animators at Studio Ghibl, Tokyo, Japan, which took seven years to complete. The screenplay by Miyazaki is based on a 1937 novel “How Do You Live” by Genzaburo Yoshino.

“The Boy and the Hero” is paced by a brilliant score by Joe Hisaishi, with lovely treble key piano flourishes, resounding chords and Philip Glass like female vocal choral chants.

Yes, I can’t tell you what “The Boy and the Heron” is all about. I can tell you that it’s fantastic. It’s one of the most unusual films of 2023, and sure to be an Oscar feature animation movie nominee.

If you are a fan of anime, animation films and the films of Hayao Miyazaki, “The Boy and the Heron” is for you.

“The Boy and the Heron”

(“Kimitachi wa dô ikiru ka”), MPAA rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.) for some violent content, bloody images and smoking.; Genre: Animation, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy. Run Time: 2 hours, 4 minutes. Distributed by GKIDS.

Credit Readers Anonymous: “The Boy and the Heron” end credits

include a song, “Spinning Globe,” written and sung by Kenshi Yonezu.

At the Movies:

“The Boy and the Heron” was seen in the Dolby Atmos format in the Movie Tavern at Trexlertown. A film short preceding the movie includes a “thank-you” by Gregory S. Marcus, president and chief executive officer of The Marcus Corp., at the grand piano, playing holiday tunes.

Theatrical Movie Domestic Weekend Box Office,

Dec. 22-24:

“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” starring Jason Momoa as Aquaman, floated to No. 1 with a less than super $27.7 million in 3,706 theaters, swimming past “Wonka,” dropping from its one week at No. 1 to No. 2 with $18 million in 4,213 theaters, $75.5 million, two weeks, as the animation feature film, “Migration” flew to No. 3, opening with $12.4 million in 3,761 theaters; “Anyone But You” opened at No. 4 with $6 million in 3,055 theaters; “Salaar” opened at No. 5 with $5.4 million, and “The Iron Claw” opened at No. 6 with $4.8 million in 2,774 theaters.

7. “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” dropped five places, with $3 million in 2,509 theaters, $149.2 million, six weeks. 8. “The Boy and the Heron” dropped five places with $2.7 million in 1,580 theaters, $30.2 million, three weeks. 9. “Godzilla Minus One” dropped five places, with $2.6 million in 1,965 theaters, four weeks. 10. “Poor Things” dropped one place, $2.1 million in 800 theaters, $5 million, three weeks.

Movie box office information from Box Office Mojo as of Dec. 24 is subject to change.

Four Popcorn Boxes out of five Popcorn Boxes