Title: Princess Mononoke
Run time: 134 minutes
Released: 1997
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Studio: Studio Ghibli
Miyazaki began developing the concept for Princess Mononoke in the late ’70s. It shares some clear DNA with Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and parts of the original premise were used in My Neighbor Totoro.
Set during the Muromachi period of Japanese history, historical accuracy was less important to Miyazaki than portraying the conflict of industry and nature. Mononoke shares this core conflict with Nausicaä, but the story and characters are more nuanced, more grey.
Lady Eboshi is the ruler of Irontown. She has freed prostitutes and taken in lepers, and this colony of outcasts works with her to mine iron and turn it into tools and weapons. She runs into conflict with the gods of the forest because Irontown has been cutting back the forest so they can mine more.
Neither side of this conflict is portrayed as inherently evil. Eboshi and the various forest spirits are shown to be stubborn and not interested in middle ground. The tragedy of the tale is the inability to find balance between Irontown and the forest before it’s too late.
Alongside this conflict we see Prince Ashitaka and San meet and fall in love. It all reminds me of Hols: Prince of the Sun, and I think it’s sort of a matured version of that movie. Ashitaka is the last prince of the dying Emishi people. While protecting his village from a rampaging demon, he is cursed. He discovers that the demon was in fact a corrupted boar god, driven mad by rage, and the curse infecting his right arm is the same inky black rage.
He sets out on a journey to find the Great Forest Spirit who can end his curse, and he ends up finding Irontown. Ashitaka at Irontown is in a very similar position to Hols at the central village of that movie, but here there is no Grunwald to serve as an unquestionably evil foe for a hero who can solve his problems with a sword.
San, the titular Princess Mononoke, is a wild girl raised by the wolf goddess Moro alongside her cubs. San serves a similar role as Hilda, adversarial to Eboshi and initially to Ashitaka as well. San is an outsider raised by the wild beings the villagers at Irontown live in fear of, and the resolution to the conflict is reliant on her seeing having a change of heart.
Where Hols seeks to protect humanity and serve as an example to the village, Ashitaka is seeking to bring balance between humanity and nature. While Ashitaka isn’t shy about violence, he knows it won’t solve the problem. He has seen what violence does to otherwise noble beings, and he has been cursed by that violence.
Among Miyazaki’s inspirations for the film were the Westerns of American filmmaker John Ford. Irontown in particular was inspired by frontier towns in Ford’s movies. Miyazaki oversaw all 144,000 cels used in the making of the movie, and reworked approximately 80,000 of them. It is also the first of his movies to make use of any computer animation. About five minutes of the movie include digital animation overlaid on the traditional cel animation.
The English dub produced by Miramax was adapted by author Neil Gaiman. A few changes were made to the dub, but these aren’t major changes. Japanese terms for mythological creatures and similar concepts were replaced in the dub by more generic phrases because they would not likely be understood without significant context.
There is also an oft repeated story from the adaptation process that changes details from time to time. One of the Weinstein brothers is alleged to have suggested that up to 20 minutes be cut from the movie. This would go against Ghibli’s agreement with Miramax’s parent company Disney, and with Nausicaä, Miyazaki had already been stung by adaptation once. In response to this suggestion Miyazaki or Suzuki is said to have sent the Weinsteins a katana with the message “No Cuts” engraved on the blade.
After Mononoke, Miyazaki was considering retirement. This would be the start of two decades of off-and-on pseudo-retirement. He came out of this first alleged retirement to make the next movie we’ll discuss Spirited Away. Until tomorrow!
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