As a truly epic film, Hayao Miyazaki's PRINCESS MONONOKE has the advantage of immersing you within its world. Slowly establishing itself with demons, honor, warrior clans, and a few key characters, the film, which is almost two and a half hours long convinces its audience of a world where the old fights the new. It's the death of the spirit world, and the budding of the iron age. A wild boar runs into town, turned into a demon after being shot with an iron bullet. It is killed by Ashitaka, the most promising warrior in the village, but he is also cursed from touching the beast. As the curse takes over his body, Ashitaka searches the lands for the Forest Spirit who could replenish his life. Ashitaka stumbles across a war between the samurai, a clan of iron-makers, and the forest beasts. Among the forest beasts is Princess Mononoke, a human girl raised by wolves. This is key to Miyazaki's storytelling techniques, for he implants a human within a world that is supposed to be purely beasts, and beasts who hate humans at that. But by merging two supposedly differing groups, Miyazaki shows a universality that's only supported by every filmic decision he makes in his films. A final battle shows a mistake of the humans potentially costing the forest and their own iron-town. PRINCESS MONONOKE is just as beautifully furnished a movie as any other Miyazaki film, but here, things are on an epic scale, a grander scale that works.
★★★★ out of Five Stars
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