Princess Mononoke (1997)

QFS No. 157 - The invitation for November 20, 2024
We are all long overdue to be taken away to a different land. At least for a couple of hours.* And there’s perhaps no one better suited to take us elsewhere than the Japanese master of animation, Hayao Miyazaki. We have technically never selected a Miyazaki directed film, but his Studio Ghibli produced Grave of the Fireflies (1988, QFS No. 23), which was the first animated film we selected to watch for Quarantine Film Society.** Studio Ghibli films’ streaming distribution opened up more widely recently, which is an exciting development and will make it easier to see all of these great Miyazaki masterpieces.

Princess Mononoke is high on that list. In 1997, there was not yet an Academy Award for animated feature. Had there been, Princess Mononoke would’ve been the odds-on favorite to win that year. Disney, who dominates the category, had the above average Hercules (1997) and Anastasia (1997) – not classics, which is how Princess Mononoke is often described.

Fast forward a few years when the Oscar category was created, and Miyazaki takes home the statuette for Spirited Away (2001), a truly magnificent film that I’d rank among the greatest animated movies of all time. And just last year, at 80-years old, Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron (2023) won the top animated prize again. My Neighbor Totoro (1988) remains a favorite around the world. Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) are among the titles that are celebrated by anime fans and others alike – and there are dozens more.

Miyazaki’s storytelling contains magic on par with Disney’s, but I’d argue even more so with stories that are layered and contain even deeper explorations of character and the soul. His stories take on complex emotions and never pander to the audience – which we definitely saw in the post-war tale of Grave of the Fireflies. Though animation as a medium is often aimed at children, his stories cater to adults as well, often with haunting imagery and disturbing sequences. Miyazaki has elevated the medium and the genre and has made an indelible mark on the film industry as a whole.

I’m very much looking forward to finally seeing Princess Mononoke. Disappear into Miyazaki’s world for a couple hours and join us to discuss here!

*Ideally, longer.

**Flee (2021, QFS No. 69) is the only other animated film we’ve selected due to a long-standing bias among some members of our QFS Council of Excellence (QFSCOE).

Princess Mononoke (1997) Directed by Hayao Miyazaki

Reactions and Analyses:
At the end of Princess Mononoke, the victor is nature. The enraged, decapitated Forest Spirit has just decimated Iron Town, the human-made walled outpost that’s been mining ore and decimating the forest in its path. Iron Town’s ruler Lady Eboshi (voiced by Minnie Driver in the English dubbed version) has had her arm bitten off by the wolf goddess Moro (Gillian Anderson).

But San (the titular Princess Mononoke, voiced by Claire Danes) and the story’s main protagonist Ashitaka (Billy Crudup) have retrieved the head and returned it to the Forest Spirit, healing it and the cataclysm has ended. In the spirit’s wake, the Iron Town is destroyed - but it’s not the end of the story. Instead, over all the destruction, sprouts being to spring and grass grows and nature reclaims the land. In the end, nature is victorious.

Nature has reclaimed Iron Town, now a grassy hill, near the conclusion of Princess Mononoke (1997).

If there’s a central idea of Princess Mononoke - and there are several, some that were a little harder to discern for us in the QFS discussion group - it is this: nature will endure and prevail, if we help it. If we, as humans, can live in harmony with it, symbiotically.

It’s no surprise that several movies including Avatar (2009) are influenced by Hayao Miyazaki’s epic story in Princess Mononoke - from both a story perspective and also visually. But what sets Princess Mononoke apart from Western fare including Avatar is that neither humans nor nature are all entirely good or entirely bad.

Take Iron Town. The town is clearly destroying the land and exploiting its resources. Lady Eboshi is an unrepentant capitalist hell bent on ruling the world. (In fact, she holds up a newly created rifle saying that it’s a weapon that you can rule the world with.) But even she has more layers than that - she is not the villain of the film, to the extent that there is a villain of the film.

Iron Town busy extracting resources from the forest.

And using fire-laden rifles to attack the wolf spirts and wipe out the countryside.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite - she is extremely benevolent. We learn she took women out from working in brothels and gave them dignity and power - but also putting them to work in the bellows of the iron works. She’s taken in lepers who were cast out from society - but also has given the task of making weapons for Lady Eboshi’s growing empire.

Lady Eboshi has empowered the women of Iron Town, rescuing them from brothels

But also employing them in the ironworks.

In this way, Miyazaki is pointing out something that we see every day in real life. Large corporations whose business is tearing up the Earth for resources to fuel modern economy and industry, claim that they are benevolent. Sure we’re extracting fossil fuels and poisoning the atmosphere, but we’re also providing jobs, education, and look how many renewable energy projects we’re funding!

Look how happy we all are living in Iron Town - how could a place this joyful also be causing grave harm to the world? Miyazaki’s juxtaposing these two realities in fantasy medieval Japan reflects our current reality today.

All of the characters are complex in this way. Even nature isn’t all good either. The wolves are particularly nasty, threating to bite off Ashitaka’s head at any given moment. The boars in particular are brutish, headstrong and unwilling to compromise. It’s their inability to let go of hatred that brings on the demon - or something like that.

I found the apes the most unsettling of the forest creatures.

The boars - just listen to reason, please!

Which is one aspect of the film we all found confusing - the rules and the mythology. Narratively speaking, the first half of the film or so is breathtaking in its scope and clear in its vision of a journey for Ashitaka to find a cure for his arm and “to see with eyes unclouded by hate.” But in the second half, Ashitaka encounters humans at war - samurai versus Iron Town, messy allegiances, even in the forest with the animals including the apes. And in the end, after all is said and done, Lady Eboshi and the conniving Jigo (with strangely aloof voicing by Billy Bob Thornton) receive no comeuppance. Eboshi does have an arm cut off, but even when nature is restored there is nothing to suggest, necessarily, that she’s going to change her tune and live in more harmony with nature. And Jigo - whose mission was to decapitate the Forest Spirit at the Emperor’s behest - survives and shrugs it all off.

The Forest Spirit, whose head is valuable - all of this is allegory that is up for analysis and discussion.

Perhaps this, too, is Miyazaki’s point several in our group contended - that these people continue to live among us. People who would live in discord with nature, with ill intentions who are only looking out for themselves. So this balance between nature and life will continue. And it’s also true that we, as American filmmakers and viewers, expect a narrative arc or change in a character. But in the East, perhaps that’s less necessary or expected - even in an animated film. After all, Ashitaka doesn’t really change at all, if you consider him the protagonist - he begins righteous and stays righteous. If anything, he’s trying to have everyone fight against resorting to anger and destruction and he loves the people of Iron Town but also Princess Mononoke and the denizens of the forest. San (Princess Mononoke) in fact still distrusts humans and her human self and doesn’t actually end up with Ashitaka.

San (Princess Mononoke) and Moro - not all good, not all evil.

Despite this lack of a narrative arc we’re hoping for as Western audience members, Miyazaki is painting a picture of there is no good and no evil. Nature itself destroys and brings to life. The Forest Spirit saves Ashitaka but also kills plants and destroys the countryside, just as life springs forth beneath its feet.

Miyazaki has mastered the animated film. But what he’s done to elevate it is that he manages to make the fantastical feel realistic. He manages to make the world three-dimensional, as if it’s there’s a camera on that hillside filming the wolves as they carry the masked San/Princess Mononoke, dodging real rifle shots. It’s a truly remarkable experience to disappear into a Miyazaki world.

But the world he’s creating, especially here in Princess Mononoke is a mirror to our world - a plea for what he hopes is ultimately balance in a world living in the absence of that balance, teetering on mutual destruction.

Near the end of the film, Princess Mononoke/San says, “Even if all the trees grow back, it won't be his forest anymore. The Forest Spirit is dead.”

Ashitaka replies, “Never. He is life itself. He isn't dead, San. He is here with us now, telling us, it's time for both of us to live.”

“It’s time for us both to live.”