Horus: Prince of the Sun

A Japanese animated film. Horus is a small boy. Before his father dies he tells him something: he wants him to return to the village they came from. On the way he finds a sword in a rock. The sword is broken and needs to be forged. He reaches a village. The people are under attack; a creature comes from the marsh again and again and nobody can stand against it. Horus helps them and is accepted. The real threat is elsewhere. A power called Grunwald wants the region, and his method is not direct attack: it is setting the villagers against each other. For that he sends Hilda. She sings beautifully, is taken in, and stays. But she cannot decide what to do; she struggles to find her own side and is the most developed character in the film. What the narrative is interested in is not heroism but solidarity: the village wins only when it acts together, and the film plainly refuses the one-man solution. The production has a story of its own. It was made at the Toei studio, took far longer than planned and went over budget; the studio cut it back and gave it a limited release. There was union organising among the crew, and a young animator named Hayao Miyazaki worked on scene design. Isao Takahata directed; it is his first feature. Who it is for: anyone interested in the history of anime and the beginnings of Takahata and Miyazaki. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a smooth children's film; some sections were left unfinished because of the budget and the narrative is uneven.