Princess Mononoke

Princess Mononoke is Studio Ghibli's most morally complex and politically ambitious film — Hayao Miyazaki's epic fantasy set in the late Muromachi period of Japan, where the conflict between industrializing humanity and the ancient gods of the forest is portrayed with absolute refusal to take sides. Ashitaka, a young prince cursed by a demon's touch, travels to Iron Town and finds himself drawn into the war between Lady Eboshi's iron-smelting humans — who have real reasons for destroying the forest — and San, the human girl raised by wolf gods who fights to preserve it. The environmental message is urgent but the storytelling is too wise for propaganda: Eboshi is neither villain nor hero; San is fierce and damaged; the forest gods are magnificent and terrifying and ultimately unknowable. Joe Hisaishi's score is one of his finest achievements. Princess Mononoke is a film that trusts its audience to sit with moral ambiguity and find their own understanding.