Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Year Released: 2001
Rating: 4.0
Miyazaki really doesn't think very highly of little boys, considering that the protagonists of his last several films have been girls: Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service. Boys, to him, are always viewed as having two sides: the young lad in this film is both benevolent and mean, giving lead character Sen food but also moonlighting as a dragon/thief. This film - which he claims will be his last but I doubt it - is leisurely paced but consistently engrossing, presenting you with remarkable imagery straight out of the subconscious - there's a lot of Freudian/Jungian symbolism at play - that really isn't for kids; it's far too intense and disturbing. Theories abound as to what it all means: gluttony (parents who eat too much turn into pigs), greed (the creature NoFace, which can produce gold out of thin air, eats those who actually take it) and what I can only call collective sadness (it is one of the most psychologically damaged movies I've seen since Mulholland Drive) are all covered in equal measure. One of the most gorgeous scenes of the year involves Sen sitting on a train with one of the movie's "bad guys" riding through the oceanic 'otherworld' - both look so pathetic and helpless, you can't help but feel for them. This is quite an achievement.
