The question as to why people watch movies demands a myriad of responses. Some people watch to relax, others to learn. For me, the answer changes frequently, even changing from movie to movie. In 2023, a year of terrible darkness, I found comfort in stories that removed me from the troubles of today. Simply put, I found solace in a distraction. For the 2-hour and 15-minute run time of Princess Mononoke, I find myself blissfully distracted and transported to a world better than our own.
Without spoiling, the film centers around a young man named Ashitaka who, in defending his village from a cursed boar, gets cursed himself. Upon learning from the village wise lady that the curse will soon kill him, Ashitaka and his companion Yakkuru, a part horse, part mountain goat, travel west to ask the all-powerful forest spirit to lift his curse.
Upon arriving at the great forest where the forest spirit lives, Ashitaka encounters two conflicting factions. Iron Town, is a civilization of humans led by Lady Eboshi, an intelligent and decisive leader, and the gods of the forest, giant talking animals taking the shapes of wolves, boars, and gorillas. Living amongst the animals is a young woman named San, or Princess Mononoke, as the wolves call her. San was abandoned as a baby and was raised by the wolves; she believes she is a wolf and aids the animals in their battle against Lady Eboshi and her ironworking village.
The film’s central conflict revolves around Lady Eboshi and her people’s relentless desire to strip the forest for all its iron. Lady Eboshi is ruthless in her pursuit of clearing the forest of creatures using lepers to create weapons and enslaved women to stoke her fires. However despite her evil pursuit, Lady Eboshi is a rather complex character, she shows great compassion to the ostracized lepers and enslaved women. Her complex morality reflects most characters in Princess Mononoke.
The animation of Princess Mononoke is perhaps the best in Hayao Miyazaki’s esteemed catalog. The most towering achievements are perhaps the beautiful animals that Miyazaki brings to life. They are both regal and majestic but grounded as well. Their emotions, whether joy, anger, or fear, resonate with any audience. The landscape also deserves much praise as Miyazaki juxtaposes a great forest laden with possibility with Lady Eboshi’s village, animated to depict humanity’s blossoming industrialization. The imagery is both beautiful and a little melancholic, reflecting Miyazaki’s complex feelings over the modernization of Japan.
What sets Princess Mononoke apart is Hayao Miyazaki’s nuanced characterization and humanization of the central battle between Man and Beast; in contrast to the expected struggle between good and evil seen in most epics, Miyazaki instead develops a world where nature, man, gods, and spirits are all vie for their share of the newly developing world. There is no definitive “bad guy”, just people and creatures with different motivations; it’s incredibly morally complex and is reflected most clearly in Ashitaka’s unwillingness to pass moral judgments on anyone, instead opting to try and understand the people he disagrees with rather than condemn them. In a year marked by extreme polarization, Miyazaki’s approach strongly resonates, emphasizing the importance of avoiding partisanship, especially in a children’s movie. The reality is that our world isn’t solely populated by purely good or evil people but by individuals existing somewhere in between.
The film derives strength from its protagonists, Ashitaka and San, and their budding romance. It’s at once a very classic tale of two people ignoring their differences and instead choosing to be with each other, but Miyazaki shakes up what could be a very simplistic relationship with a remarkable final scene. San and Ashitaka decide that they must set each other free, San must return to the wild and Ashitaka must help humanity rebuild. They agree that despite being in love, neither can truly exist in the other’s world and because of that, they should only see each other occasionally. In the final moments of the film, Miyazaki chooses to share a piece of philosophical sophistication rare in film, imparting the profound truth that sometimes to truly love something you must learn to let it go.