Animations provide such a brilliant vehicle for storytelling. It's untethered by the limitations of reality. You see Studio Ghibli's works and you'd realize how even adult themes can also work in the form if presented well.
This is my second Studio Ghibli movie, the first being Spirited Away (2001). In a sense, you may think that in 1997, Miyazaki was already writing on the themes of Avatar, the 2009 film.
It's 14th-century Japan. The spirits are real and so is humankind's greed. There is a power struggle between the forest spirit and the lady of the iron town. Our protagonist, exiled from his clan, is engulfed in this power struggle unwittingly.
There is violence so this is not a kid's movie. Miyazaki goes to one of the oldest power struggles. It is in a way a struggle between eastern and western thought. Enterprises and profiteering vs communal living and harmony. Unfortunately, greed has survived and we no longer see the spirits among us. Call it magical realism if you may, but Miyazaki's spirits are relatable. You fall for their simplicity and crave to wind the clocks back to the 14th century. It is perplexing that almost everyone would feel for the forest spirits without realizing or conveniently ignoring that they represent the iron town. The incessant march of capitalism will ruin us all.
In a way this an old story. It was probably old even in 1997. Still, in 2023, it had a lot to offer. When you conduct an experiment and plot data points on a graph, there are some which are outliers. Sometimes your experiment execution is wrong and sometimes the points are wrong. Movies like these are the outliers on our entertainment spectrum. They tell you which direction is right. Depending on how far away your graph is from them, you know how much of a correction you still need to do.
Review by SolBlockedParent2023-01-11T18:14:00Z
Animations provide such a brilliant vehicle for storytelling. It's untethered by the limitations of reality. You see Studio Ghibli's works and you'd realize how even adult themes can also work in the form if presented well.
This is my second Studio Ghibli movie, the first being Spirited Away (2001). In a sense, you may think that in 1997, Miyazaki was already writing on the themes of Avatar, the 2009 film.
It's 14th-century Japan. The spirits are real and so is humankind's greed. There is a power struggle between the forest spirit and the lady of the iron town. Our protagonist, exiled from his clan, is engulfed in this power struggle unwittingly.
There is violence so this is not a kid's movie. Miyazaki goes to one of the oldest power struggles. It is in a way a struggle between eastern and western thought. Enterprises and profiteering vs communal living and harmony. Unfortunately, greed has survived and we no longer see the spirits among us. Call it magical realism if you may, but Miyazaki's spirits are relatable. You fall for their simplicity and crave to wind the clocks back to the 14th century. It is perplexing that almost everyone would feel for the forest spirits without realizing or conveniently ignoring that they represent the iron town. The incessant march of capitalism will ruin us all.
In a way this an old story. It was probably old even in 1997. Still, in 2023, it had a lot to offer. When you conduct an experiment and plot data points on a graph, there are some which are outliers. Sometimes your experiment execution is wrong and sometimes the points are wrong. Movies like these are the outliers on our entertainment spectrum. They tell you which direction is right. Depending on how far away your graph is from them, you know how much of a correction you still need to do.