Japn 340 Japanese Cinema: Mononokehime

Review Excerpts:

Ask the artists who have led the gratifying resurgence in animation in the '90s at the Disney Studio and its rivals for the man who has inspired them, and the name you will almost certainly hear is Hayao Miyazaki. After you see Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke, no further explanation is needed.

Part myth-laden epic and part eco-fable, the film is a masterpiece of Japanese animation that offers a fascinating and instructive contrast with the admirable state of the art here.

It speaks to a different audience and addresses issues of nature, technology and the environment with more sophistication than we encounter in the self-conscious political correctness that has crept into Disney's animated features. Indeed, Princess Mononoke is too violent for the younger children who make up Disney's core market.

Miyazaki's film was released two years ago in Japan and was second only to Titanic in Japanese box-office revenue. In theme and technique, it pushes the boundaries of animation and opens up new and imaginative possibilities.

Desmond Ryan

True artistry in feature animation is so rare these days, because something usually gets sacrificed in the process. If lots of effort is expended in visual magic, the plot may suffer. Intricate stories may demand that the visuals take a back seat.

That's why Hayao Miyazaki's anime masterpiece "Princess Mononoke," Japan's most successful film, is such a treat. Beautifully constructed and painstakingly written, this is about as close to a perfect animated epic as you're likely to get.
Melanie Mcfarland

This exotically beautiful action film features gods and demons locked in a struggle for the future of the unspoiled forest and an elaborate moral universe that Mr. Miyazaki has created. As such, it is a sweeping, ambitious version of the comic-book storytelling that engendered it. Frequent battle scenes, graphic enough to make a sharp distinction between ''Princess Mononoke'' and animation made for children, keep the story in motion. These are often breathtakingly rendered, but it is the film's stirring use of nature, myth and history that make it so special.
Janet Maslin, NYT

Miyazaki’s choice to set Princess Mononoke in the Muromachi period of Japanese history is highly significant to the animation’s overall impact and underlying message. Though there are numerous historical subversions due to the animation’s strong focus on Japanese mythology and fantasy, this is to emphasise the power that nature once held over mankind and civilisation. The animation’s ‘vision of cultural dissonance, spiritual loss, and environmental apocalypse’ (Napier 2000: 176) is set in this pre-modern period to remind us of a time when mankind lived in fear of nature, and when the authority we claim over the natural world today was neutralised. This holds great significance in Princess Mononoke, as Miyazaki wishes to display this relationship with nature as lost, and to show that the mystery that once surrounded the natural world has been removed and can never be replaced.

"In Miyazaki’s view, the fourteenth century is a period of significant historical transition from a world that was still in close contact with both natural and supernatural forces to a world that would become increasingly orientated towards the human." (Napier 2000: 181).

One of the most striking elements Miyazaki gives the natural world in Princess Mononoke is the fearsome, savage appearances given to the animal-gods, such as Moro or Okkoto. In contrast to the cutesy, child-friendly representations of animals in Disney films, for example, the animals are brutal, aggressive and vast. The impact of this is to emphasize the formidable power that nature held over mankind in times such as the Muromachi period, and by including these animistic elements in the film – inspired by the ancient Japanese religion of Shintoism – Miyazaki attempts to depict the animal-gods as figures to be respected and feared within the film.

Equally, the natural world is given spiritual as well as fearsome qualities in Princess Mononoke, made effective by the spiritual undertones that are at work in the animation. The forest is depicted as sacred and harmonious through the use of golden hues and vibrant colouring, which produce an aurora-like quality to the forest scenes. Miyazaki pays the environment careful attention during these shots, often cutting away from the characters and sources of dialogue to display various images of the forest to the viewer. These slow-moving images of the landscape, combined with mysterious background music, give the forest an ethereal and spiritual quality that is a stark contrast to the industrial aesthetics of Irontown.

"The place where pure water is running in the depths of the forest in the deep mountains, where no human has ever set foot–the Japanese have long held such a place in their heart" (Miyazaki, 1997).

The beauty of the forest combined with the savage and fearsome nature of its animal-gods results in a mysterious, dangerous presentation of the natural world. Miyazaki valorises nature in the animation in order to remind us that this kind of relationship between civilisation and nature is over and can never be fully reconciled. Never will the natural world hold the same mystery over humans as it does in Princess Mononoke, before industrialisation consumed any mystical or supernatural qualities that humans projected onto the natural world.

"I think that the Japanese did kill the Shishigami around the time of the Muromachi era. And then we stopped being in awe of forests … it has become a tame, non-frightening forest … the kind we are accustomed to seeing." (Miyazaki, 1997)....

Miyazak...suggests that ‘there can be no happy ending to the war between the rampaging forest gods and humanity’ (1997). We can look at the relationship between Ashitaka and San at the film’s conclusion, for example, where the two go their separate ways. Ashitaka returns to help rebuild Irontown, whereas San – who cannot forgive humans for the death of the Shishigami – retreats to the forest. Though the two promise ‘to visit each other sometimes soon’ we are left with the impression that is a merely a temporary agreement, and this presents a sad conclusion to San and Ashitaka’s unfulfilled relationship. It is possible that Miyazaki wishes to make this relationship symbolic of man and nature in Princess Mononoke; there is understanding, but never again will the two meet under harmonious circumstances. It is this poignant aspect of the animation that permeates the conclusion of the film and suggests to the viewer that perhaps reconciliation between San and Ashitaka – the wild of nature and the rationality of man - is unlikely.

Though Napier suggests that ‘the ending of Princess Mononoke is a kind of draw, with neither side triumphant and the abject still not entirely repudiated’ (2000: 189), it is certain that Miyazaki intends to present the death of the Shishigami as a loss to humanity, and as a warning. We must remember that the chaos that follows the Shishigami’s decapitation not only destroys the forest around it, but it also responsible for demolishing Eboshi’s Irontown. Through this, Miyazaki reminds us that civilisation relies on the natural world for survival; without the support of nature, industrialisation and the progress of humanity are impossible.

This relates Princess Mononoke firmly back to the present, and acts as a commentary on the environmental crisis we face in the 21st century. It is a warning, to state that the natural world and the human world are intertwined,and that with one’s collapse must come the other. As for the possibility of resolution between the two, Miyazaki’s message is stark; there must be reconciliation, or both sides will face disastrous consequences. As Napier suggests, ‘Princess Mononoke attempts to provoke its audience into realizing how much they have already lost and how much more they stand to lose’ (2000: 180).

Miyazaki laments the loss of the wonder that nature once held for humanity, and this is made effective by his Shinto depiction of the forest in the animation – ‘the sense of the mysterious at the heart of life, the desire to commune with it, and the willingness to express dependence upon it’ (Picken 1980: 49). Combined with the outcome of Princess Mononoke’s environmental crisis, Miyazaki warns us of the irreversible consequences that come from abusing nature and how there must be understanding between civilisation and the natural world if both are to survive.
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