The Defying Creation about Deified Creatures...

Rating: 10/10 (26 June 2017)

I saw "Princess Mononoke" twice the same weekend but I'm not sure I grasped half of what makes it such a great movie. Even 'great' is too vague a word; so many 'great' movies are not one-tenth the film "Princess Mononoke" in style, content and universal implications.
Even after two viewings, I can only provide a superficial overview on the story and a meager but enthusiastic review of what constitutes one of the best animated movies of the last decades. To think that the same year, Disney came up with "Hercules" gives you an idea of where the real magic of animation operatedthanks to the most imaginative creator and most accomplished artist of his generation: Hayao Miyazaki. Indeed, imagination and artistry never got along so well since Walt Disney. Now, to the story.
Although set in medieval Japan, "Princess Mononoke" ventures between the realms of history and fantasy, in a universe where the spirits of a God-like Nature govern the lives of (precisely) all living creatures: animals, plants and even men, they all coexisted in harmony until the age of deforestation. The film opens when a wild demonically possessed creature attacks the village of Ashitaka. And the tone is set from the start: the monster looks like a giant boar recovered by a sort of tentacles looking like writhing snakes, the drawing dwarfs any CGI abomination. You might as well compare a Rembrandt with a 4-year old kid's painting.
The film was made in the late 1990's at the dawn of the CGI frenzy and when 3D animation would drive half the box-office grosses, but all the special effects of the world will never hold a candle to the power of hand-painting. "Princess Mononoke", the highest-grossing movie in Japan but soon-to-be dethroned by "Titanic", required a level of precision that couldn't do without traditional drawing. Miyazaki resorted to computer for a few hundred shots, only 1% of celluloid, but it says something about the man's pragmatism as he could also embrace technology to keep a fair balance between his stylish and narrative visions.
And it works. When Ashitaka defeats the monster, everything looks real and the injury resulting from the fight doesn't have the contrivance of a 'magical' plot device. Ashitaka's arm is infected by a mysterious curse that will ultimately cause his death although giving him temporary superpowers (like decapitating someone with his a simple arrow shot). The village's wise woman tells him he must be exiled for his own good, to save his arm with the help of the Gods of the forests. Then starts the heroic and epic journey of the young Prince.
From what I read, a few words were mistranslated, he's not actually a Prince and the girl who gives him the talisman isn't his sister, they're actually lovers. It doesn't undermine the comprehension of the story but it shows that the film is impregnated by Japanese culture and some idioms might be lost in translation. Even the title is misleading: Mononeke doesn't refer to the name of the Princess, but her status as a "possessed monster or outcast", this description, from human perspective, isn't objective but it reflects her status as someone between two worlds. Her real name is San and she was raised by the Goddess-wolf.
San is like a counterpart to Ashitaka, both human protagonists deeply related to the animal world, one by choice and one by fate. While San resents humans for their destructive actions and their effects on animals (we'll learn later that the boar-demon was cursed by a bullet lodged in his body), Ashitaka is a collateral damage of men's actions but he's incapable of hatred, and empathize with both animals' and men's pleas. As usual with Miyazaki, this is not your typical "good vs. evil" story. The closest character to a villain is Lady Eboshi, the chief of Irontown, and she cuts trees to make iron and build the fortress where many social outcasts, ex-brothel workers and lepers work in exchange of food and protection.
Eboshi has understandable motives and she's also a powerful woman respected by men and therefore, needing to assert her authority. Even the main antagonist, Jiko-bo, a sneaky monk, has a mission: taking the head of the Forest Spirit for the Emperor, he's like a government worker, so to speak. Ashitara is like the centerpiece of an arena where creatures struggle to find peace and harmony; even the Gods Animals are unequally pacific. The environmentalist statements aren't spoken at the expenses of realism. We do root for Nature and accept Miazaki's protection of environment but there's the idea of people defending their own interests, for their own survival. It's not realism, but lucidity.
But lucidity doesn't undermine the dazzling visuals: the forest looks majestic, the wolves have that furry amplitude that shows how determined they are, and the magic displayed whether to convey a sense of danger or beauty is hypnotically beautiful. But that's only the tip of the iceberg, there's more to see in the film. Even the romance between San and Ashirata is handled with a sense of maturity that respects the coherence of the plot and our intelligence.
"Princess Mononoke" surpasses everything Disney made in the last years before and everything Peter Jackson will make, CGI can look fine but you're always tempted to cheat with it, computer does the trick. There was a screen writing manual titled "Save the Cat!" and explaining how most movies, especially on the field of animation and fantasy / sci-fi journeys were based on the same structure. I dare anyone to find a usual pattern in "Princess Mononoke", this is a film that defies all the conventions and where every frame is original and surprising.
To put it simply, "Princess Mononoke" is a great animated film with a great story, can you ask for more?