A sweeping adventure about a 14th century ironmonger, the animal gods who live in the forest she clearcuts to mine for ore, and the doomed warrior prince who risks what’s left of his life to stop the war between them, Miyazaki’s painstakingly lush mid-career masterpiece has long been seen as a cautionary tale about humanity’s disregard for nature, but its true power is rooted less in protest than in acceptance.
A sweeping adventure about a 14th century ironmonger, the animal gods who live in the forest she clearcuts to mine for ore, and the doomed warrior prince who risks what’s left of his life to stop the war between them, Miyazaki’s painstakingly lush mid-career masterpiece has long been seen as a cautionary tale about humanity’s disregard for nature, but its true power is rooted less in protest than in acceptance. Here is a “Star Wars”-sized epic about the moment when civilization deprived our world of an animistic purity that it will never get back; a historical fantasy saga that eschews the naivete of good and evil in favor of a more realistic story about a girl raised by giant wolves, ancient magic, and the catastrophic risk of living without sorrow for the beautiful things we’ve already lost.