Princess Mononoke preserves the director's spirit of humanism while succeeding as a daring action-adventure.

Rating: 10/10 (19 October 2010)

Director Hayao Miyazaki spent twenty years considering the story that would eventually become Princess Mononoke, transforming it from something more obviously linked to fairytale and folklore into a passionate plea for us to learn from history instead of simply repeating it. It's an uncomfortable film, full of ambiguity. Ashitaka is the perfect hero, brave, strong, unpretentious, and kind, yet he kills when he has to. San - vicious, unreasoning, and utterly focused - ought to be a villain, but Miyazaki refuses to allow that simplistic label, insisting through each of his characters and their relationships that instead of name-calling we should be cooperating, because the only alternative is destruction. Princess Mononoke is a primitive film in many ways, both violent and pessimistic. The woodlands in which it is set are full of strange spirits and gods, beautiful, but threatening. The score by Joe Hisaishi supports this sense of threat, with a closing theme that's an eerie counter tenor solo that sends chills down the spine. It's also the first Studio Ghibli film to make extensive use of computer animation, a decision taken by producer Toshio Suzuki to meet an otherwise impossible deadline at the end of the three-year production process. Unlike other Miyazaki films this one is not for small children - there's too much violence, bloodshed and death for that. It's a complex, legendary tale, but one that is easy to follow, thrillingly exciting, and never less than beautiful to look at - like a detailed painting brought to life. Though it was Miyazaki's subsequent effort, Spirited Away (2001), that won the Oscar, Princess Mononoke is probably more worthy of it.