M君影院再刷幽灵公主：We Must Try to Live

Princess Mononoke We Must Try to Live (9/10 stars) This is, without a doubt, my favorite animated movie and one of the best films I've ever watched. Even after three or four viewings, Princess Mononoke is still a riveting masterpiece, whether storytelling or aestheticism. Every character and living organism in this universe acts completely according to their nature and rationale --- it is so disgustingly detailed you can see it in the smallest eye turn of a pedestrian or even a cloth patch. Such meticulousness is also shown in the movie's artistic expression, where the arrows fly and the grass waft with such fluency you could forget that the film was animated almost 30 years ago. In addition to all this, Joe Hisaishi also gives one of his best works in the soundtrack, which often overtake the scenes through their fitting grandeur and vivacity. Environmentalism is merely the first and rather trivial layer of the movie. Princess Mononoke is an epic where men forge demons and gods take lives. It is a reality where the samurai are as ignorant as the apes, where the boars are as prideful as the soldiers with explosives, and where the wolves can befriend an elk but not humans. It is a hymn of nobility who apologizes to a wrathful dagger, of poise who stands to a bullet's impaling, of leadership who makes women and lepers her warriors. It is also a series of unanswered questions: Why must we continue charging even as fellow fighters fall to their feet? Why must we treat the gap of reasons with flame rather than words? Why must we resort to war and apocalypse before we regret and reflect on ourselves? As it is repeated throughout the film and Miyazaki's oeuvre, life is the answer itself. "The wind rises... we must try to live!"