Check out my youtube review HERE!!!
Studio Ghibli is one of the most creative, ambitious and consistent movie studios today filled with wonderful and artful storytellers. The studio was founded by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata and Takahata directed the film I'm reviewing today. The Tale of Princess Kaguya is the latest from Studio Ghibli and based on the ffolk-taleThe Tale of the Bamboo Cutter which is considered Japan's oldest narrative and done in the visual style of Japanese water colours.
The film follows Princess Kaguya who is sent to earth from the moon to be found by a bamboo cutter in the countryside. Like bamboo she grows at a rapid pace and after her earthly father finds gold he decides to raise her as a noble. Princess Kaguya destined to be royalty but born of nature struggles with the demands of society as she tries to stay true to herself. Radiantly beautiful she is presented with many suitors but not wanting forced love she gives them impossible tasks that they are to complete.
The Tale of Princess Kaguya is a beautiful film that feels no need to go by modern film structure nor modern animation. The film is told in a combination of vignettes and slightly conventional plot with gorgeous hand drawn animation that is wonderfully engrossing and unfortunately rather alien these days. If anything can and should be said about this film is that it is a piece of visual art. The colour and strokes of the images create gorgeous moving images and Takahata having played around with his visual style before in his previous films Only Yesterday and My Neighbors the Yamadas continues to do so here. The music is also artful and I love the Japanese instrumentation.
The story itself is beautiful but also doesn't reach its full potential; it has many fantastic ideas but unfortunately not all of them are brought to fruition. This is Ghibli's longest film and there are a few moments that could have been trimmed but overall it isn't much of an issue as you enjoy your time in the world of this film as it contains many great moments of honesty, haunting drama, social commentary and enjoyable humour. Unfortunately all of this in undone by the films finale.
The way the film ends has to be one of the most frustrating movie endings I have ever seen. Everything up to that point was a near masterpiece, a thing of beauty and soul but then it is all thrown away by an ending that goes against everything this film was about. It's a betrayal that feels so false that it stirred up uneasy laughter by people in the cinema. It was a slap in the face that I can't forgive and don't think I'll ever get past even though it's staying true to the tale it is based on. The film is still good but what was once beautiful is now tarnished in a way that cannot be undone.
Like I said the film is a visual piece of art with lovely music. The voice cast (I watched the Japanese version not the English dubbed) was wonderful and their characters endearing. The story is ambitious, old fashioned, beautiful and rich with ideas, commentary and relevant themes. This film is 95% beautiful...and the ending just ruins it. I will never get past what a betrayal the ending is and though it is true to the folk-tale it didn't have to be; The Tale of Princess Kaguya is a film not a folk-tale and it has the right to stand on it's own. With that said it is a beautiful film with an unfortunate ending but still beautiful nonetheless.
4 out of 5 stars. It would have been 4 1/2 if not for the ending.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
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