A timeless fairy tale

Rating: Null/10 (9 November 1999)

It took Miramax almost two years and certainly more than one offer to world-famous comicbook author Neil Gaiman to have him translated Hayao Miyazaki' s mystical fairy tale "Mononoke Hime" into English, but the result is truly a congenial e. Miyazaki returns with his 11th animated feature movie back to the roots of Japanese storytelling and succeeds by weaving the elements of the modern Manga comics into an ancient plot around the fight between nature and mankind. It is only the third film of Myyazaki which deals with a traditional Japanese fairy tale, and it is his strongest adaptation so far. The story seems to be quiet simple. One day a demon approaches the small village in which the young warrior Ashitaka lives. In the very last minute he saves his people from the ranging Boar God who turned into a wandering dead - covered and eaten alive by worms - and is on a rampage to destroy all of mankind in his mad attempt to fight back the evil enemies who turned his homeland into a wasteland. The wise woman of Ashitaka' s village very soon discovers the reason for the Boar' s outrageous anger. A deformed iron bullitt was causing him inhuman pains. She asks her ancient stone oracle what to do, and finds out that Ashitaka, who was infected with a deadly disease, has to leave his home forever to meet his destiny far away. On the search for the homeland of the Boar he finally is confronted with Lady Eboshi' s iron manufactory which is truly a fortress against the forces of nature and an asylum for prostitutes and other outcasts of society. Lady Eboshi's ideal of a glorious industrial city for the formerly disrespected may be a good cause, but the means she uses to make her dream come true are almost devilish. It is her hunt for the head of the "spirit of the forest" which finally brings Ashitaka together with San. An orphan who was raised by the Wolf Goddess and who is now fighting on the side of the animals of the forest to free them from Lady Eboshi' s iron works.
The summary of the plot reveals already the epic dimension of this symbolic tale and Miyazako tells it in beautifully detailed pictures which combine the classic traditions of Japanese water color painting with the colorful sketches of modern day Mangas. It also draws its spirit from classic Japanese Kabuki theater, in which a seemingly doomed anti-hero succeeds in surviving and altering his destiny. The personel of that theater is best laid out by the greedy monk Jigo, synchronized by Billy Bob Thornton, who at first saves Ashitaka's life, but in the end reveals himself as the true enemy of the forest gods. These gods themselves don't hide behind a unnatural mask. Even after the "spirit of the forest" lost his head he rather appears like an exploding volcano than any kind of western supermonster. Underlined by a hilarious soundtrack of composer Jo Hisaishi the director makes sure that even his younger audience gets the message of tolerance and peace between us man and the nature we live in. His hero Ashitaka is a perfect role model for the balance in understanding both sides of the coin - that nature needs to be untouched by man, in order to remain its purity and true spirit - and that men need to exploit the earth and its ressources, in order to build a better place to live within a basically hostile society. It is this struggle in which the Japanese people constantly are involved - the fight between traditionalism and modern industrialism - that inspired this movie, and it is Miyazaki' s sensitivity and sensualism which finally translate this struggle into an universal story. Thereby, his humor is sometimes as crude as his way of presenting the battle scenes. More than one man gets his head or arm cut off and overall the explicite violence may disturb some of the audience who are only used to the harmonic and violence-free Disney cartoons. Still, even these scenes are centred very deeply within Japanese culture and do only help to create a "real life" feature film atmosphere. Almost nowhere within the 134 minutes the viewer has the impression of watching "just" an animated movie. The drama is as intense, the characters are as motivated and distinct as in any non-animated epic. Hopefully, "Princess Mononoke" will find its way around the whole globe, and hopefully Neil Gaiman' s carefully English adaptation with the voices of Billy Crudup as Ashitaka, Claire Danes as San/Princess Mononoke, Minnie Driver as Lady Eboshi and Gillian Anderson as Wolf Goddess Moro will help to distribute this masterpiece of Japanese animation cinema also into such counties which rarely present Japanese movies.