November 4–11, 1999

movie shorts

Princess Mononoke

Hayao Miyazaki’s animated epic is a mix of old-style craft and impressionistic reverie that often brings Kurosawa to mind. It’s sometimes overstuffed and occasionally dissolute, and the American dub job is only half-successful. (Billy Bob Thornton as a wizened, opportunistic monk is particularly miscast.) But for sheer visual poetry, Mononoke stands with few films (animated or live action). The story, based loosely on Japanese myth, concerns the battle between an imperiled forest spirit and the nearby mining town, and the warrior (voiced by Billy Crudup) caught, uncomprehending, in the middle. Most striking is the way Miyazaki blends foreground detail with impressionistic backgrounds, the way the film shifts from the narrative to the spiritual. Even if it’s sometimes too self-consciously "epic", there’s an undeniable majesty to Miayazaki’s film, a true lyrical vision with metaphorical weight.

—Sam Adams