11 28 99

of nature and man

I had intended to do laundry today, but I was invited to see a movie which I have been very much looking forward to seeing: Princess Mononoke. The movie is only playing in one theatre (that I am aware of) in Northern Ohio. So the family piled into the sedan and made the trek to the Big City.

Princess Mononoke was a box-office smash in Japan, the highest grossing domestic film there ever. (Only the American made Titanic has surpassed it.) Released by Miramax in the US, it has been dubbed into English. Although some of the original emotion seems to have been lost in the translation, it is still a hard-hitting film.

I've been a little upset with some of the reviews I've read about this movie. Many critics have bemoaned the film's violence and complex message as being too much for children to handle. A common mistake in the US is assuming all cartoons are made for children. This movie was not made for children, but for adults. You need to use your brain in the movie... Something which I fear the American public is unwilling to do.

The conflict is superficially simple: Man versus Nature. The setting is mythological, feudal Japan sometime in the 15th century. Japan is teetering on the brink of the Iron Age, personified by Lady Eboshi. This strong woman leads a settlement called Iron Town, which is slowly poisoning the forested mountains around it. The forest gods, intelligent, giant animals, are at war with the settlement that is destroying their home. Living with a band of giant white wolves is San, or Princess Mononoke. (Mononoke can be loosely translated as spirit of the animal.) San was adopted by the wolf goddess Moro when her human parents abandoned her to save themselves from the wolves. The main character, Prince Ashitaka, comes upon this feud when he sets out on a quest to relieve himself of a curse.

But rather than being a tired retelling of the bad polluter versus good environmentalist story, this film asks questions that have no easy answers. Lady Eboshi, rather than being a stereotypical anti-nature villain, is not an easy character to dislike. She buys out the contracts of prostitutes, giving them good-paying jobs in her forges. She cares for a group of lepers, letting them live out their lives in safety. Lady Eboshi also has problems of her own. She has defied the landowners' sanctions against her, continuing to practice her iron work craft even though it is illegal.

The forest spirits, meanwhile, are just trying to survive. The runoff water from the forge is killing the fields downstream, and the mining operations destroy huge tracts of forests. They retaliate against Iron Town, who in turn fights back, seeking to destroy the Forest Spirit (a deer-like creature with the feet of a bird and an almost human face.) Throw in a greedy monk, a band of killers and the samurai of the landowners, and you've got a very Big Film.

The animation is stunning. But it doesn't throw its grandeur in your face either, like Tarzan or The Lion King did with scenes that appear to only showcase some nice animation. The result in Princess Mononoke is an incredible masterpiece of art on which a wonderful story is told.

Also, if you're familiar with Japanese culture, you'll recognize the wonderful sense of wabi-sabi this film creates. Wabi-sabi is a practically untranslatable word... My best approximation of the meaning is an aesthetic, something which is soft yet hard, old and venerable, complicated but awe-inspiring. It's an emotion, a feeling that is created inside of you by an external source. Like Princess Mononoke.

My only serious issue with the movie is one of the voice actors they cast: Billy Bob Thornton as the conniving monk Jigo. His southern accent simply doesn't fit into the panorama the film creates, and I was jarred out of the magic of the moment every time Jigo opened his stupid mouth.

I really am afraid that this movie will do poorly. It has had a limited release, in many places relegated to art houses instead of major theatres. The advertising, in this area at least, has been practically non-existent. But the marketing won't kill the movie; the short attention span of the American public will. Sure, there's blood and beheadings and explosions, but they're animated. And for Pete's sake, the director wants you to think about the movie, rather than spoon feeding everything to you.

As much as I liked the movie, I doubt that the majority of the US film-going public is mature enough to understand its message.

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