Princess Mononoke (1997)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Princess Mononoke (1997) – H. Miyazaki

Miyazaki’s strengths lie in his fierce imagination and beautiful images aligned with environmental and humanistic themes.  His movies possess an internal logic all their own – and they might not always “make sense” outside of their own context.  But somehow the events still carry astonishing emotional weight, carried by the swelling sentimental music (by Joe Hisaishi) and allusions to the real world.  For example, much of the impact of Princess Mononoke lies in the idea that humans are destroying the environment, even though the story takes place in a fantasy version of feudal Japan where giant animal gods still roam the Earth despite the spread of humans.  We can be sad for the forest (whose health is symbolised by strange little sprite-like creatures) although we identify as human, understanding as Miyazaki’s heroes do, that we must learn to live together with nature.  But many humans in the film have not come to this realisation – and Miyazaki still asks us to empathise with the men and women of the ironworks who make the guns that are used to kill (forest gods as well as the pillaging samurai).  The central hero is Ashitaka who is infected by a boar god turned demon and must travel west to undo the curse – it is there that he finds himself in the middle of the battle between San and the wolves (who represent the forest) and Lady Eboshi and the ironworks (who represent human civilisation).  He tries to help them both – a complex position for a protagonist, demonstrating clearly that Miyazaki isn’t interested in making things easy for viewers (just as the issues are not easy in reality).  In the end, of course, it is the images, strange, gruesome, beautiful, violent, be they creatures, landscapes, or something more abstract, that will retain a grip on your memory, as they do in most Studio Ghibli films – and not the plot.  For what it is worth, I watched the Japanese version with subtitles (but not Neil Gaiman’s version).