Not Devoid of Hope

Rating: 9/10 (1 June 2014)

I know you'll probably never trust anything I say ever again, but I didn't care about "Mononoke- hime" (1997) when I first saw it some ten years ago. I have been, however, on a stroll through Miyazaki's body of work, and I've finally arrived at the princess's domain again.
And all I can say is it's nice to be able to change one's mind. The beginning is fervent, echoing both the Narayama legend and King Lear, the former in the strictures of village laws, the latter in its apocalyptic hopelessness: "this world is a curse" and "life is suffering and pain" could be something uttered by the great old king, wearing his crown of weeds. Without question, then, this complements wonderfully not only Shakespeare but Kurosawa's "Ran" (1985), as well, with which it shares the epic of hopelessness. But Miyazaki's film is not devoid of hope altogether. The violence is cruel, the action aggressive and sudden, the sense of death billows over the green meadows. Yet the love burns, the strong impulse to do what's right overpowers, and through death there is life.
The last thirty minutes are among the most exhilarating moments of animation I've seen, the sense of crescendo and climax so overpowering it's as if the whole film is about to crumble in its wake. There are small moments of anticipation, details that contain the whole story (the dripping blood at the gate, the bone at the bottom of the lake, the first drops of rain), and they find their counterpoint in the utterly uncontrollable jolt of the resolution. The pond itself is a magical place, cinematically speaking, and the Deer Good exhibits just the right kind of ambivalence. I'm not a person to throw around monikers, but this is powerful cinema in all respects.
The name of the film is of interest. The word "mononoke" is a general term that means "a spirit" or "a monster". Thus it's not the name of the princess, as in the English translation "Princess Mononoke", but rather has the meaning that's close to "spirit-princess". Neither human nor animal.