Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 14-May-06
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Princess Mononoke (English version) (1999)

Even now, when animated films often merit respect, the impact of "Princess Mononoke" still surprises me. I'm leery of the word, but Hayao Miyazaki's international hit is magical in a full-blown, infiltrate-your-inner-being kind of way, more so than most live-action movies that aren't "The Lord of the Rings." At least it is for me, and I don't completely understand or want to understand what it's saying.

The movie takes place when mankind was beginning to wield the technology that would allow it to master nature and shed its credulous, unscientific past. Young Ashitaka, last prince of a venerable Japanese tribe (voiced by Billy Crudup), is wounded during battle with an animal god who has become a demon through hatred of the human capacity for destruction. Cursed to watch the infectious hate consume his own body and soul, Ashitaka ventures into the world (astride his wonderful red elk) and happens upon a war between an ironworkers' colony and a neighboring forest. The colony is run by a fearless entrepreneur named Lady Eboshi (the mellifluous Minnie Driver), whose crew of mercenaries, ex-prostitutes, and lepers reverentially adores her. Her enemies are clans of gods and animals who want to maintain the land for themselves and the great Spirit of the forest, chiefly a she-wolf (Gillian Anderson) and her adopted human daughter, San (Claire Danes). (This warrior maiden is once referred to as "Princess Mononoke" and for some reason lends that name to the title.) Complicating the situation is a group of hunters and samurai sent by the Emperor to keep his fingers in any profitable pies.

Obviously this isn't a simple children's tale (in fact it might be confusing or frightening for kids), and for the most part it avoids painting anyone in black or white. It's tempting to despise Lady Eboshi for disrespecting ancient customs and hankering to blow a wolf to bits, but one can't deny that she's efficient and, in her own way, loyal. The animals possess a native glamour but are similarly single-minded, intent on killing and quarreling among themselves. The story appears to state that man and nature exist with identical objectives — to persist and look out for their own — which preclude any harmony between them. For people who like their myths to show Good triumphing over Evil, this is as distressing as it is fascinating. It's true that the hero, Ashitaka, refuses to take sides and seeks common ground between tradition and modernity, thus defeating the hatred inside him. But his actions bear the stamp of futility, much like his tribe's rituals and the union he forges with San. Because "Princess Mononoke" is set in the near enough past that some of its elements seem familiar, even while some of its creatures do not, we as viewers feel like we're part of the story and know more than the hero does. We know that while nature is powerful, we can wreak enormous destruction upon it and indulge and pride ourselves in the process. What we might not realize is that when we began to dominate our world we lost the age of heroes: modest, mindful individuals who could transcend the instinct merely to persist and look out for their own.

Copyright © 2006 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.