A not so royal princess

Rating: 6/10 (4 August 2005)

Medieval Japan. Ashitaka has been infected with a strange disease when he killed a mysterious demon boar covered with leaches that attacked his village. On his journey to find a cure he meets lady Eboshi, a female leader of a town exploiting the forest and fighting with creatures protecting the nature. The leader of those creatures is San, princess Mononoke...
When I first went to see "Princess Mononoke" I expected a gentle, romantic, dreamy fairy tale. Was I surprised when I saw the raw and brutal story! This is in my opinion Miyazaki's most violent film, but non the less, it really is an impressive anime. I wouldn't necessary put it on the 102. place on the IMDb's top 250 films, but I admit it has something in it that fascinates me.
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The most clever aspects of the story are the ones about how lady Eboshi is tricking her people into helping her exploit the Forest, while at the same time dismissing the wolf's revenge attacks as something illogical. Also, just watch the sequence where San is being captured inside a sea of red leaches on a demon boar: the part where Ashitaka jumps into that bunch of leaches trying to save San from them, but is being catapulted into the water, is pure dark poetry and romance in one. Also, there's the spectacular image of the gigantic deer god's body walking through the hills.
Still, Miyazaki made a lot of mistakes. The middle of the film is repetitive and too long making only the end exciting, the characters are somewhat wooden and the whole mood of the anxious world is way over the top. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone younger than 16. Also, I miss a lot of humor Miyzaki had in his previous films. I got the idea he made "Mononoke" just because he was in his depressive "I hate the world" phase. All in all, the epic "Princess Mononoke" deserved it's success( it's average critic's grade on rotten-tomatoes.com is 7.7/10 ), but in the long term there was still something missing in it's story. What? Just watch "Being there" or "The Graduate" and you'll see what.
Grade: 6/10