The Archetypes live and breathe in Miyazaki's workshop

Rating: 8/10 (22 June 2009)

This movie will be compared to his other works and found lacking. Ah, well, people will write and say all kinds of things.
The juxtaposition of and extended dialogue between Youth and the Aged; the blurring of lines between Hero and Heroine; the rhapsodic mixing of color and sound: this film is a chapter... a continuation.
The submerged images of War simply left me agape. I can't think of another place, in film, where I've seen this kind of guide to healing from Conflict.
There's a thing that was only sort of hinted at in Mononoke and Sprited Away. It was Nightmare, but it was something that needs to be looked at. Here, it's more fully rendered, but it's easier to handle: thanks to the earlier films.