Miyazaki’s likely swan song charms Toronto as film fest opens

TORONTO (CANADA) – The Toronto International Film Festival opened Thursday with admiring applause for “The Boy and the Heron,” Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki’s likely last movie — a meditation on love, loss and the horrors of World War II.

Cinema buffs crowded into the 2,000-seat Princess of Wales theatre to be the first outside Japan to catch Miyazaki’s first feature film for the storied Studio Ghibli in a decade — and, at age 82, perhaps his farewell to the industry.

The semi-autobiographical film follows young Mahito as he moves with his father to the countryside after his mother perishes in the haunting fire-bombing of Tokyo during World War II — depicted in a whirl of flames, sirens and chaos.

After meeting a talking heron, he enters a surreal and perilous fantasy world in search of his mom, where he finds everything from giant bloodthirsty parakeets…