If I've timed this right, the rest of my Miyazaki Ghibli reviews should appear on the day of release in Japan of the studio's latest film, Gedo Senki (Tales of Earthsea). I'm now going back to talk about the first Ghibli I (knowingly) saw. Back in the early days of 2002 I was reading a film website called DVD Times and browsed through a couple of reviewers choices of DVDs of the year. One reviewer picked out the R2J release of Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke). His praise was so glowing, that I went beyond my normal spending pattern and bought it at £15 from Play. For some reason that seems to afflict me with a lot of Ghibli films, I had to split up the film over 2 nights. This lead to me not warming to it straight away. The Western cast were passable, but there's always something bad about using regular actors in voice-over roles. Here, Gillian Anderson sounds like she only came up with her voice on the day of recording and Minnie Driver seems almost bored by her role. The film drew attention because the English translation was adapted by Neil Gaiman of the Sandman series. Big name stars were used to dub including Billy Crudup, Billy-Bob Thornton and Jada Pinkett-Smith. Thankfully, the next time I watched through I selected the original Japanese audio and sat through the whole film. This is an epic much in the mould of Nausicaa. Miyazaki once again returns to explore mankinds interaction with nature. This time around though, there's even less distinction between right and wrong.
The story opens in north-east Japan. A huge boar demon attacks a small village of the Emishi people. The town's prince, Ashitaka, manages to slay the boar, but is cursed by doing so. The peoples' wise woman extracts an iron ball from the demon's remains. She tells Ashitaka that this was what turned the former god into a curse demon and that the curse of hatred will consume him too before killing him. Banished from his town, he heads west to investigate the boar's origin and try to find a way to life the curse.
To the west lies the settlement of Iron Town - a town housing a tribe of people lead by Lady Eboshi. She oversees the extraction of ore and conversion to precious iron. Unfortunately, the easily accessible ore has run out and the humans must dig beneath the adjacent forest to continue making their livings. The forest is home to several animal gods including Moro, the wolf god, and the forest spirit; a deer with the face of a human that can control life and death. As Ashitaka arrives, he encounters the aftermath of a battle between the humans and wolves and spys a young girl helping the wolves. Ashitaka helps several wounded humans back to Iron Town where Lady Eboshi explains their plight and the secret of her success - she employs lepers to build firearms and buys out the contracts of prostitutes in the neighbouring towns so they can work in the iron furnace. She is determined to kill the forest spirit for two reasons - to ensure access to the ore and because she has a deal with the mysterious Jigo, an agent of the emperor who believes the head of the spirit will grant him eternal life. As Ashitaka rests in Iron Town, the girl he saw earlier attacks the village, and tries to kill Eboshi. Ashitaka learns that she is human but was raised by the wolves. Immediately attracted, he saves her life and helps her escape - although he is shot in the process, leaving his life in the hands of a confused and torn Princess Mononoke (Princess of beasts), San. The arrival of the tribe of the former boar god ups the stakes as they want revenge for the death of their leader - a battle to end all battles is looming. A rogue group of samurai intent on taking Iron Town for themselves complicates matters and Ashitaka is caught in the middle.
Originally mooted as Miyazaki's final film, Mononoke sees the director in serious mode again after his playful films such as Tototro, Kiki and Porco Rosso. Blood is spilt, limbs severed and death is in the air. From the very first scenes, we see that this isn't going to be a light hearted story. We also see the amazing animation of Ghibli. Miyazaki personally checked and correct over 80,000 frames for this film. The attention to detail still remains - from the interactions of Ashitaka and his "steed" Yakkuru to the individual antics of the wonderful Kodama tree spirits he encounters in the forest. Once again Miyazaki presents us with a world where the line between good and evil has blurred to insignificance. We have Eboshi who has worked hard leading her people to prosperity, taking in the lepers that noone else would help and helping the girls escape the trap of prostitution. She only wants what's best for her people and isn't afraid to fight to get it. The animals want to resist the humans. The boars are so enraged at human behavior that they are prepared to kill them all in an offensive attack. To both sides Ashitaka remains the voice of reason, trying to help the humans, but at the same time stop Eboshi killing the spirit. Once again we see the character trademark of Miyazaki of a young naive, but strong girl. Since she was raised by the wolves, San has no appreciation for the human point of view. She feels attracted to Ashitaka, but is afraid of what it means. Her "mother", Moro, realises that San doesn't have to share the fate of the forest. As San prepares to leave and fight alongside the boars, Moro tells her
"You know, that boy wanted to share his life with you".
This draws an angry, confused response of
"I hate him! I hate all humans!"
Moro can see that maybe there is hope for humans and her daughter.
Although eponymous, San isn't given top billing on screen, and so must share a similar role to that of Fio in Porco Rosso. The love story between Ashitaka and San ends on an unfinished note - San has admitted her feelings for Ashitaka, but they realise they can't be together as San still has a resentment of other humans. I'll finish with what Miyazaki himself has commented about this film.
"There cannot be a happy ending to the fight between the raging gods and humans. However, even in the middle of hatred and killings, there are things worth living for. A wonderful meeting, or a beautiful thing can exist.
We depict hatred, but it is to depict that there are more important things.
We depict a curse, to depict the joy of liberation.
What we should depict is, how the boy understands the girl, and the process in which the girl opens her heart to the boy.
At the end, the girl will say to the boy,
'I love you, Ashitaka. But I cannot forgive humans.'
Smiling, the boy should say,
'That is fine. Live with me.'
I want to make such a movie."
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