My Neightbor Totoro, 1988.

“Nothing that happens is ever forgotten, even if you can’t remember it”.(Spirited Away, 2001)

When an animated film done in two dimensions takes on a third in the eyes of the viewer, something wonderful and indefinable takes place. This is frequent in the work of Hayao Miyazaki, the great Japanese filmmaker whose latest creation, The Boy and the Heron, premiered recently, culminating an exemplary career that began over four decades ago.

Along with the character dynamics, this leap between dimensions is essentially based on architecture, which in movies translates into sets – drawn in this case – that provide structure and solidity. As in real life, buildings of very different nature do not only accompany us, but give meaning to our lives. In animated films, they are what lend weight and consistency to the stories told to us. Without them, the action would make no sense at all, showing fictional beings inhabiting and moving within empty, undefined spaces...[+]