THE LITTLE NORSE PRINCE (I Takahata)

( Taiyou no ouji Horusu no daibouken  / Hols, Prince of the Sun / Isao Takahata / 1968 )

LITTLE NORSE PRINCE, directed by Isao Takahata with Hayao Miyazaki as chief animator and made a full 16 years before NAUSICAA, is often cited as one of the first modern animes, striking a blow against the simplistic Disney-inspired fare that came before. A mythological tale of good versus evil that represents its theme both in the epic battle of the young hero Hols against the devil Grunwald, and in the personal battle of Hilda who finds herself tortured as the result of a fiendish Faustian pact. Three years in the making, PRINCE's production was plagued by strikes, a small budget, and a studio that grew increasingly hostile to the filmmakers' vision to the point when, although not entirely finished, Toei decided enough was enough and gave the film a limited cinema release of only ten days.

PRINCE wears its issues on its sleeve: a couple of the action setpieces are put together from still images, but the imagination and talent of the crew always wins out. The still images are actually large, detailed panoramas shot with a roving camera and edited quickly, which lend the sequences a level of clarity and kineticism that modern action films rarely achieve. The story, based on an old myth (actually from North Japan, it was changed to North Europe to give the film a more international flavour), is a brilliant translation of exactly what makes these old stories so special: the narrative is both slightly primitive and based partly on contrivance, but it uses its primitive nature to powerfully explore timeless ideas of human brotherhood and morality, and uses its ability to get away with what would, in more realistic films, seem like outlandish developments to let the filmmakers' imaginations fly free. Thus, we are allowed a sequence where Hols is double-crossed, the Earth opens up and he is flung into a metaphysical realm called The Endless Woods where he is trapped in a surreal nightmare created from another character's moral dilemma.

Although Takahata and Miyazaki would work on TV series together for the next decade (including the wonderful FUTURE BOY CONAN) one of cinema's great what-ifs is what would have happened if, rather than Toei stamping on them, the crew that made this film were able to immediately follow it up, instead of there being the 16 year gap between this and NAUSICAA. LITTLE NORSE PRINCE isn't just innovative and influential, it's a masterpiece that can completely stand next to Ghibli's finest.