A completely underrated masterclass

Rating: 10/10 (8 January 2018)

Up until a certain point i regarded spirited away as Miyazaki's masterwork and my favorite of his filmography; Spirited Away is still his best and Miyazaki at his peak, but Princess Mononoke has resonated with me like a film never has. From the opening narration provided by Keith David to the final shot of San and Ashitaka in the field together, the film is perfect in every sense of the word. The soundtrack alone, composed by the immensely talented Joe Hisaishi, is completely cinematic and transportive. What adds to the greatness of this movie is how un-miyazaki it is, considering how, for lack of a better term, family friendly the rest of his films are; this one is a sharp, but welcomed departure. With thematic elements of war and conflict between the preservation of nature and the advancement of human civilization, Miyazaki does not downplay the severity and importance of these elements and injects his genius into it as he does. The characters are nothing to laugh at either as they are layered as you'd expect a studio Ghibli character to be, you have an exiled prince looking to relieve himself of a curse cast onto him by a demon while trying to act as a peace keeper between man and nature, a girl who was abandoned at birth that was adopted by a forest deity and acts as a primary point of interaction between the humans and nature, and a well intentioned matriarch who saves women in this world from brothels and is a pioneer in the advancement of human civilization, and the list goes on. I would be remiss if i did not talk about how gorgeous this film is animated, there are stills in this that if i just took it out of the film, framed it, and placed it in the middle of a prestigious art museum it would not look out of place. I've lost count at the amount of times I've seen this film and i am still enamored by it.