Princess Kaguya -
I liked the ending a lot. The cruelty of it, I guess. The way that attendant drapes the robe over her right after--or was it in the middle?-- of her monologue about her love for the human world, the grief and joy of it. Like that was cold, man. There is no existence better from their pov than their jingle jangle existence on the moon and the disregard shown for both Kaguya's suffering and that of her parents really got to me, the lack of understanding, or empathy, over her plight and her desire to stay longer.
I also liked the father. The way it--as in fatherhood--was portrayed here is particularly affecting. That there's love is undeniable, yet the ugly proprietary side of it, which grows to a point where his ascension in court is more important than her happiness, just felt really flawed, really human, in that immediately identifiable way. He's by turns amusing, contemptible, subservient, greedy, triumphant. Next to Kaguya herself his character felt the most vivid. And going back to the cruelty of the ending, that his last cry for forgiveness can no longer be heard by the one it is owed to was particularly gutting.
Dunno, there's a bunch of things I liked. The movie did feel a little loose, where a bulk of the events feel loosely linked until it coheres near the end, but perhaps that's just a symptom of telling the story of a life, one that's wasted and truncated and rushed but a life nonetheless. The tragedy of it is less the parting than that it never had a chance to flourish at all, and the regret that it can never be fixed. The bitterness of it is what remained with me through the writing of this post.
Needed more smug attendant girl.
