Movies I love : Mononoke Hime ( Princess Mononoke)

For a long time I have been wanting to write something about Hayao Miyazaki's wonderful Anime movies. But the fear of not being able to do justice to the material used to keep me from writing , but nevertheless here is an attempt - however lame it is, had to be done !

Mononoke Hime /Princess Mononoke (Japan 1997) , Dir : Hayao Miyazaki

This is a tale set in ancient Japan where forests still loomed large and was populated with large hordes of animals and birds. With forest spirits and animal Gods still dwelling there was a harmony between men and beasts. However industrial era was coming and with it men were getting stronger and bolder and were expanding like never before, destroying forests, setting up forges and factories and making metal. Thus setting up a conflict with forest and its dwellers.

The story begins with young prince Astaka of an eastern tribe who spots a strange foul creature moving through forest about to attack his village settlement . He bravely pursues the creature which turns out to be a demon-Boar God filled with wrath and hatred towards human race . He somehow manages to subdue the creature but his arm gets infected through contact with demon-God. He is told that to save himself from fully getting infected he has to travel west from where this demon God came and find out what drove the Boar God into becoming a demon filled with hatred and wrath and find a way to life the curse.

As Ashtaka travels across the kingdom on his steed ( a mountain elk ) he comes across wars and injustice / bandits and finds that his cursed arm can make him kill people effortlessly when they cross paths with him. As travels further he saves a few men from drowning , they are part a settlement on the verge of forest. This settlement is led by brave Lady Eboshi who has a troop of female warriors/bodygaurds , she has reclaimed some part of forest land had driven away lot of animals. She represents industrialization , equipped with ever improving technology her folk have set up a metal forge where they make weapons and tools but their biggest secret tool is gun. With help of lighter and more efficient guns , Lady Eboshi and her band of followers are now able to expand even further and claim more lands and achieve much more prosperity than they could ever dream of , but she has lot of rivals to contend with human and animal. Leading the attack on Eboshi and her men is Wolf Godess from across the river along with her two sons and an adopted daughter (a human girl) - San -who is Mononoke Hime to the villagers. San leads the wolves on multiple futile attacks on the human settlement as tensions keep mounting between humans and the animals.

But what sets Miyazaki's tale apart from all other representations of human-nature conflict is the way he sets up the confrontations by showing us the true nature of all participants , no one is entirely wrong/evil , they all have reasons for doing what they are doing. Lady Eboshi even though she is leading the drive against nature is not shown to be someone who is purely evil. She works for upliftment of women , to give them the status they deserve in society . In Lady Eboshi's township women work in the factory and have upper hand over men and they worship her and are willing to lay down their life for her. She also rehabilitates people cast away by society like lepers , by giving them shelter and work and helping them integrate and be part of the movement. This is what sets this story apart from similar stories in this genre like James Cameron's recent movie Avatar which had evil , greedy humans plundering a planet . Here all characters have sufficient motivations to do what they have to and no one is purely evil.

Ashtaka lands up in the middle of this conflict , but quickly realizes what is going on and tries in vain to stop the both parties. As Lady Eboshi and men from Emperor's army decide to team up to behead the Deer God , the ruler of the forest - a life giver - in order to completely end the era of forest Gods and start the era of men and machines , on the other side wild boars decide to fight the humans to death to prevent any further damage to forest . Now Ashtaka must team up with San (Mononoke Hime) and her wolf tribe to try and save the Deer God to maintain the delicate balance that exists between nature and its inhabitants.

Like most Miyazki movies the visuals (most of it hand-drawn) are enthralling , the colours , landscape and the sheer imagination take it to a whole new level . This is an epic movie , with sweeping landscapes , lush green forests with brilliantly imagined forest spirits , the battles between rampaging animals and humans is very well captured. This movie takes forward the constant pacifist theme in most Miyzaki movies along with message for living harmoniously with nature , this is truly one of the best efforts from the legendary animator.