Author: Maria Chzhen
Date: 2 May 2020
I started watching Studio Ghibli a few years ago, after coming across Spirited Away (2001) and My Neighbour Totoro (1988). Immediately, I liked these movies so much that I even started a VK fan group for the director Hayao Miyazaki! Those were fun times. But even as a nerdy kid with a Miyazaki fan group that consisted of 25 people, I felt something more than strong interest for these Japanese animated movies. I felt a connection to these unforgettable animes that leave their mark on the soul and mind of everyone who watches them. They can transport you to different, often magical, places that you can't visit in real life. They can also allow you to see the beautiful Japanese scenery and ancient forests. Animation films show the world's subjective nature, while movies set in the real world show its physical nature.
Animated films aren't a subcollection of "real" physical movies. They make up an entity of their own. Like many movies with real people playing the main characters, animation movies can be insultingly bad. But if done correctly, animated films can change you as a person for the better.
Now, a few years later, I have decided to rewatch some of the classics. Princess Mononoke (1997) was one of the first on my to-rewatch list. Princess Mononoke, or Mononoke-hime in Japanese, is a tale set in medieval Japan, at the beginning of the Iron Age. It was the time when many people wanted to defeat, tame and control nature. In contrast, others still preferred to live harmoniously with it. The film has no flat characters - none of the heroes are 100% good or 100% bad, and at different moments, we can view the supposed antagonist in a good light, and vice versa. It is a story of the forest, animals, and humans living in symbiosis, frequently fighting, but still somewhat getting along.
The animation film begins with the watchman on the village tower, sensing that something is wrong. In the next few moments, a giant, demonic and boar-like creature, with flesh that looks like it is full of living snakes, comes out of the forest. The boar attacks Ashitaka, the prince of the village and our main character, fights with him and leaves a curse on the prince's arm. According to the wise woman, with whom Ashitaka consulted later, the monster was a boar god in whom a metal bullet landed. The shot drove the creature insane and made him attack everything and everyone. The curse on the prince's arm will expand throughout the body, kill the young man, and will only lift if Ashitaka "cuts his hair and leaves us [the village]." Having almost no choice, Ashitaka sets off on a long journey on his horse/mountain-goat/antelope (an imaginary creature) called Yakul.
In all of these scenes, we encounter beautiful, ancient forests, and hyper-realistic clouds. It is a known fact that the Yakushima island served as a massive inspiration for the setting - a dense Japanese forest filled with rare animals and blooming nature.
After long travels and encountering several enemies (whom the curse on the young man's arm demolished), prince Ashitaka arrives into the lands where the wolf goddess Moro roams free. Moro has a constant companion - a young woman named San that was raised by the wolves. Brave San rides swiftly on the bare backs of white wolves. She helps them fight Lady Eboshi, a strong female leader of a village that produces iron and weapons with gunpowder. Lady Eboshi wants to rule the world, as one of the lepers (people with leprosy) mentions.
San is known to many in the village as Princess Mononoke (the word Mononoke means a lot of things in Japanese, one of them - forest spirit). Both she and Lady Eboshi are preparing for war. The fierce ruler of the village wants to destroy the forest to make the humans the owners of the planet, and Mononoke intends to destroy all humans that cause the mess to nature. Ashitaka must choose a side to get rid of the curse inflicted on him. What will happen and will the prince manage to stop the curse from spreading in his body before it's too late?
From a technical point of view, the movie is a masterpiece. Many of the alluring scenes (e.g., the animal gods, the hand-drawn ancient forest, the village, the fights, everything!) were drawn with care and beautiful colors. The animation quality took my breath away! The producer was Hayao Miyazaki, and the writer was Neil Gaiman. The vocal cast consisted of several talented people:
Once again, like in most Studio Ghibli movies, Joe Hisaishi was the composer. In the film, I have noticed how much the soundtrack changed the mood. At one moment, the music is calm; at another, it gets adventurous, and at the third, it becomes heroic. The viewer gets to experience many emotions just from listening to the melodies. You notice your heart rate going a little up as the music gets scarier and as your worry grows.
The forest spirits were animated so well! The little Kodamas are super cute, and the sounds they make when they spin their tiny heads make me want to go and create a fanart of them (even though I am no artist). They are mythical creatures, the forest spirits, in Shintoism, and they are also a big part of the Japanese folklore. More about that in a bit.
Princess Mononoke is considered one of the finest movies made by director Hayao Miyazaki. One of the reasons for that is because you can't fully get all of the hidden lessons at once. You need to rewatch the anime several times before you can form some conclusions about it. The movie avoids easy moral simplifications. Miyazaki opens discussions about several issues.
In the movie, there is an extraordinary scene that shows San and Ashitaka in love. They agree not to lead each other's lives, and instead, grant freedom and see each other occasionally.
Indeed, Princess Mononoke is a very philosophical movie. You don't find such films easily in the cinematographic industry. This philosophy is probably why the movie ranks as the third highest-grossing movie in the history of Japan (alongside with the Titanic and Spirited Away), and why the box office was almost $160 million globally! The film got submitted for an Academy Award by Japan, but unfortunately, it wasn't nominated. It was the first animated movie to win Japan's Picture of The Year in 1997, though!
My overall rating for the movie would be five out of five. The plot is fascinating and captivating, the characters developed very well, the music is gorgeous (thank you, Joe Hisaishi!), and the scenery was bright and beautiful. Princess Mononoke is a great gift to humanity from Hayao Miyazaki. In my opinion, it deserved to get an Academy Award.
Josie Rourke
Roman Polanski
Michael Gracey
John Hughes
Dan Scanlon
Stanley Kubrick