Mut und Willenskraft, besitzt du sie?

Rating: 10/10 (24 February 2007)

(German: Bravery and volition, do you own them? - Recruiting poster in Sophie's city)
I had to watch this three times. The first time to memorise the different themes in this film, i.e. curses and preparation. The second time to really understand what all this is about. And the third time to become emotionally involved.
"Spirited Away" is by comparison pretty straight, this film is a little overcrowded. If this would be a Wagner opera, then it'd be "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg". But I like this film more, it only shares its complexity and the corniness of its love theme with that opera. Speaking of music, that's quite a job on this one. From second Vienna school à la Berg over cosmopolitan à la Korngold to Vienna operetta à la Strauss, a fitting counterpart to the visual amalgamation of European architectures and machinery presented in this film.
It's an indifferent could have been land, mixing German, French and English influences, located for most of its aspects around 1900. There is one major deviation from this setting, namely the battle ships, which are a clear WW II reference. In WW I it were the soldiers themselves who had to face the unspeakable, not the civilians.
Now, the film is about love. It makes a vital point. That "Mut und Willenskraft" are necessary to steer your course in life, but that you are facing a double challenge, not only to be brave and determined, but also to use your virtue for the right purpose in a world that is specialised in harvesting inexperienced young men for any kind of purpose. It might be for sexual consumption, like the Witch of the Waste is doing it. Or it might be to channel their strength into inhumane efforts, like Lady Suliman does.
The film tells in fact many such stories, stories about people that subscribed their force to aims that make them both unfree and inhumane. And it tells stories about the tasks those face who want to rise to the occasion of their own lives.
It is a wonderful film. Poetical, rich, true. Perhaps too rich, you have to take some effort and time for it to work.