#54 Princess Mononoke

In Summary

Some more Studio Ghibli fun on this list, here's a look at the epic, Princess Mononoke.

Set in a time of warring factions, of spirits, of witches, Princess Mononoke is a tale of how a prince, Ashitaka, finds himself cursed trying to defend his tribe from a bewitched hog and has to travel to find the Forest Spirit in order to cure himself before the curse spreads further.

Along the way, Ashitaka finds himself enmeshed in the internecine clashes of the wider world in which the film is set. He first runs into Jigo, who is posing as a monk, who promises to help lead him to the Forest Spirit. Then he comes across two wounded soldiers from Irontown who have been attacked by wolves, leading them across a dense forest back to their home and being welcomed by the powerful Lady Eboshi.

The plot thickens further as Ashitaka finds that the wolves have raised a human girl, San, who is intent to bring down Lady Eboshi and Irontown. Lady Eboshi's plan is to kill the Forest Spirit, clear the forest and thus free San - who is also known as Princess Mononoke.

This then leads to further conflict in the film between the various factions - added to by a clan of boars - clash over what to do with the forest and the forest spirit.

Princess Mononoke is a film that gradually adds layers upon layers to its story, with the main theme being this conflict between a simpler life in balance with nature and industrialisation. Like Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke has a spiritualism to it, where the magic and fantastical are a matter of fact rather than imagination.

A Memorable Quote

Life is suffering. It is hard. The world is cursed. But still, you find reasons to keep living.

Things You May Not Know

• Director, Hayao Miyazaki, personally corrected or re-drew around 80,000 of the film's 144,000 animation cells.
• Infamous producer, Harvey Weinstein, wanted to release a shortened version of the film to better suit a Western audience. Instead, Studio Ghibli sent a katana to Weinstein's office with the note 'no cuts', the film was released in the West in its full length.
• 'Mononoke' means angry or vengeful spirit in Japanese, while the term 'Princess' doesn't have quite the same connotations in Japanese as it does in English. However, the English translators elected not to alter the title of the film to reflect this.

One of the Greatest of All Time?
It is really apparent over the course of this film that writer and director, Hayao Miyazaki, wrote the film as the ideas progressed to him rather than to a pre-existing outline. The film keeps on adding different ideas as it goes along, eventually progressing into this complex and sprawling final battle sequence.

I found Princess Mononoke a little overly serious for its subject matter, lacking the charm of the other Studio Ghibli film in this list, Spirited Away. Its arcane and sprawling narrative arc lost me after a certain point and it became a real chore to get to the film's conclusion.