Princess Mononoke movie review

Princess Mononoke is one of the best movie I’ve ever seen. I have to admit,  this movie never cease to amaze me no matter how many times I’ve watched it already. Before watching it in class, I’ve watched segments of the movie (including the ending) already. Yet, this is probably the only time I feel the most emotion after watching this. I suppose, you really do have to watch the whole thing to get the whole emotion and what the movie writer Hayao Miyazaki is trying to imply.

Summary:

The movie shows an interesting perspective of how animals view us and how humans view animals. In combination with the Japanese history of Samurai warfare, the movie manages to show the destruction of nature at the hands of humanity, and the sadness of the world failing to unite together to face this issue, and pity among ourselves for short term profits.

Throughout the movie, “the forest” was constantly emphasized as a result of deforestation by humanity for the town’s ironwork, and a lack of awareness of environmental stability and preservation which angered pretty much every animal species and their gods living around the ironwork town. A series of events followed that lead to the destruction of the village, as well as multiple gods of each animal species, which lead to a new, completely green environment of grasslands being formed.

Character analysis:

Princess Mononoke was with one of the Forest clans hating humans. Having been abandoned by humans inside the town, she was raised by a wolf and served with the pack in a attempt to protect the forest. Fueled by a combination of anger and sadness regarding the forest’s rapid decline,  Mononoke attempted to risk it all to try and kill the governor of the ironwork, lady Eboshi. She was stopped and saved by Ashitaka, in which for multiple times they showed genuine love for each other, but their relationship never developed fully as a result of Mononoke’s hatred towards humans.

Lady Eboshi, a character who seems to hold totalitarian-like power within the town, fully embodies the sides of gender equality, by having both genders share equal workloads in an organized society. This reflects on the historical side of Japan in a Feudalistic way, in combination of her leading the defense to fight off other warlords trying to loot her prized irons. Within one of the movie, she encounters a young man who traveled from the East side of the world seeking aid from the deer god, Ashitaka.

Ashitaka was one of the honored warriors of another clan in the East. He got hurt by a powerful disease when he lead a courageous defense of his clan when a boar god went amok and tried to destroy the village. The disease threatens to consume and kill him, but he still had time for a chance to redeem himself, and perhaps find cure along the way. He traveled to the West later on, and encounters princess Mononoke and Lady Eboshi which he develops partnerships with. He becomes the main character when he stopped death occurring to everyone when him and Mononoke returned the Deer head to the Deer god’s body (hungry for vengeance and taking lives everywhere trying to get the head back). This incident was a result of Lady Eboshi’s ambition, which almost lead to Eboshi getting killed herself.

Topics of environmental preservation, feminism, and destruction of humanity was mentioned together with relationship to the feudalistic Japanese history. The gods of each animal clans were so angered that they tried to destroy the village, but ended up getting killed themselves. At the hands of Lady Eboshi and her soldiers, it portrayed a sad virtue of humanity, destroying the environment with no regards to environmental consequence or the nature’s retaliation.

Feminism was also showed as in the town, the ladies worked just as hard as males do. It was very unique to see women doing male’s chore and the way that town functioned in a organized fashion, showed just how powerful Eboshi is and how a society functioned when everyone is employed. It portrays a autocratic type of government in which people work to militarize the society.

As the story unfolds, many of the gods were sacrificed in an effort to stop the human beings from violating even more forest territories inhabited by other animals. The Kodamas, gorillas, boars, and other wildlife animals were some of the inhabitants damaged by the results of deforestation. The ending shows the environment hitting the “restart button” as everything is turned into a grassland once more. Thus portray’s Hayao’s thoughts on environmental retaliation.

Legendary movie no matter how many times I watched it. It just feels so different watching it with my classmates because you get a sense that there are classmates supporting the humans, and some supporting the animals too. It’s kinda like different perspectives, which I might connect to the real world and dare ask “how much hatred is brewing inside of those animals in our modern day society?”….