‘Princess Mononoke’: 25th-anniversary screening

Above : Hayao Miyazaki’s “Princess Mononoke” will screen Sunday, Monday and Wednesday. (Photo/Fathom Events)

Some movies you never get tired of seeing. For me, that goes for pretty much every animated movie that comes out of Studio Ghibli.

Especially if the movie was directed by the great Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki.

Of course, Miyazaki is almost synonymous with Studio Ghibli. He’s clearly the studio’s filmmaker whose work has received the most attention – including an Academy Award in 2003 for “Spirited Away.”

Six years before that, though, Miyazaki gave us “Princess Mononoke,” a movie that, now in its 25th year, the late Roger Ebert called “one of the most visually inventive films I have ever seen.”

And that is the film that, part of Studio Ghibli Fest 2022 , will screen on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday at AMC River Park Square, Regal Northtown Mall and Regal Riverstone Stadium in Coeur d’Alene. Sunday’s dubbed-in-English screening will begin at 3 p.m., Monday’s subtitled screening will begin at 7 p.m. and Wednesday’s screening (again dubbed) also will begin at 7.

Ostensibly telling a story about a young Prince attempting to discover why “nature is out of joint,” “Princess Mononoke” – despite featuring battles with beasts, the presence of white-spirit wolves and the prospect of humans, animals and gods all speaking the same language – is at heart a film about threats to the world’s environment.

Newsweek’s David Ansen wrote, “You’ll see why, in animation circles, Miyazaki himself is considered one of the gods.”

Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian was even more effusive. “The story has simplicity and force,” he wrote, “with captivating images and gutsy narrative ideas recalling Kipling, Ovid and Homer.”

And the Seattle Times’ Melanie McFarland wrote, “Beautifully constructed and painstakingly written, this is about as close to a perfect animated epic as you’re likely to get.”

If you’re wondering whether to see the original Japanese language version or watch it dubbed, my position is … see the movie the way the filmmaker originally intended.

And since Miyazaki speak Japanese, I’m not going to argue with him.