Best Film of 1999 (Yes, I think it's better than American Beauty.((Don't get me wrong, I thought American Beauty was a great film, but Mononoke was better))).

Rating: 10/10 (21 January 2000)

Princess Mononoke is the most breathtakingly artistic film I have ever seen. It ranks among Fantasia and Pinocchio as the greatest animated films ever made. The story line is beautiful and complex. It's not your normal, boring, conventional, and predictable Hollywood plot that everyone seems to want nowadays. Some people had trouble with Princess Mononoke, I think, because there are no real good guys and bad guys. You can't really take sides, every character has different motives with good and bad intentions. But that's one of the things I liked about Mononoke. It's not the good old simplistic Disney tale where there is a definite good and evil. Princess Mononoke is not about good vs. evil, or even man vs. nature, but about how we should all reach a certain compromise and try to work together and help each other. You won't find too many themes like that in movies, especially animated features. Princess Mononoke is not for small children, not just because of the violence, but because it will probably go way over their heads. It is geared toward adults and older audiences. The love story between San and Ashitaka is very subtle, moving, and even profound. It's not conventional Hollywood. Princess Mononoke is #1 on my ten best films of the year list because I believe it is a landmark feat in the animation genre. I think it will eventually change the way Americans look at animation; that it's not just limited to the family and small children, but can be for adults and only for adults. Mononoke shows that animation is just another form of expressive filmmaking, it can show things on film that could not possibly be filmed in live action.