Princess Mononoke

A few weeks ago the Academy announced who will be receiving their honorary awards, and I'll be taking a look at some of those artists' films. First up is Hayao Miyazaki, the well-respected Japanese animator. I've already seen his Oscar-winning film, Spirited Away, but his most popular film, at least in Japan, is the 1997 film Princess Mononoke.

I saw the 1999 American version, dubbed by fairly well-known Western actors such as Billy Crudup, Billy Bob Thornton, Claire Danes, Gillian Anderson, and Minnie Driver. I congratulated myself for recognizing Billy Bob's voice without knowing who it was.

The film is a fantasy adventure epic set in the Muromachi period, when Samurai roamed the countryside. We begin in the village of the Emishi, who were a a tribe of people living in the northeast corner of Honshu. They are attacked by a demon, which is in reality a boar god that has been penetrated by an iron ball of hatred. The last prince of the Emishi, Ashitaka, kills the demon, but not before being wounded with a curse that will kill him, unless he can travel very far and have the forest spirit cure him.

Along the way he comes across a mining town run by a woman known as Eboshi. She has cut down the trees in the forest in order to mine, and was the one who turned the boar god into a demon. She is at war with the animals of the forest, including a wolf clan. A teenage girl, San, rides with them, as she was raised by the wolves.

Ashitaka tries not to take sides, but insists that humans and nature can live together in harmony. San tries to deny her humanness, while Eboshi is only interested in making money, though she does reach out to employ former brothel girls and lepers. Indeed, one of the greatnesses of this film is there are no real good guys or bad guys--everyone has valid points. The only real villain is Ji-go, a mercenary masquerading as a monk, who wants to steal the head of the forest spirit to trade to the emperor.

Having grown up on Japanese cartoons like Speed Racer and Kimba the White Lion, I recognize the style of animation--the very large eyes, mostly. Miyazaki, unlike many anime animators, does not overly sexualize his characters, although there is a spark between Ashitaka and San. (Crudup and Danes, who later married in real life, voice these two characters). The message about balance with the environment is profound and timely, as the complete rape of the forest will do no one any good, animal or human.

Of the Miyazaki films I've seen, such as Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke is more straight ahead adventure, without many of the flights of imagination I normally associate with him. The demon is quite something, a collection of worm-like tendrils that envelop their host. Many of the creatures in the film have a basis in Japanese mythology.

This was the most popular movie in Japanese history until Titanic came along.