Kaguyahime no monogatari / The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (Isao Takahata, 2013)
Yet another Ghibli masterpiece, sigh. Despite the small output, I think if you were to do an Adam-style poll in which one has to chose a studio, and every film made by other studios get destroyed, I'd chose to save them. It just makes me so happy that these films exist for people to see, especially children. They elevate my opinion of humanity, and of life in general. Which, hey, is kinda the subject of this film ! It's not exactly groundbreaking, but the execution... it's all in the watercolor animation I suppose. That and the Joe Hisaishi score. I don't know, I can't figure out what it is about these films that touches me so deeply. I cried twice watching this, and I don't cry often while watching films... there's a simplicity (and a sincerity) in the way they depict human connections that cuts right through the artifice of cinema (and of animation).
That ending is something else too. I was very worried when it started, initially wishing it had ended with the flying scene, but you need that melancholy (if not outright tragedy) afterwards I think. I like that it also plays as a dig at Buddhism, which gets so romanticized in the West one forgets it's yet another philosophy that essentially goes "the world sucks, so the first thing to do is to withdraw from it". CINECAST! that.
10/10