Film
Environmental concerns have motivated the animation giant Studio Ghibli since its salad days: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (made pre-Ghibli but now absorbed into its canon) and Pom Poko are among those which imagine climate disaster. The studio reached a peak of cinematic sophistication with Princess Mononoke, Hayao Miyazaki’s 1997 fable about a dying prince drawn into the struggle between nature and civilisation in ancient Japan. Humans battle gods; limbs and heads are severed. Meanwhile, the placid kodama (tree spirits) look on. Their naive, ghostly faces rotate slowly, accompanied by a tick-tick-ticking sound like time running out. Ryan Gilbey
