Princess Mononoke: Gods, Guns, Demons and (shudder) Women Who Speak Their

Let me just say it up front. Princess Mononoke shows us just what an animated movie can be, and what they so rarely achieve. It's good stuff.

The Plot
Prince Ashitaka is going around doing whatever it is princes do (apparently it involves riding around on an elk in the forest) when his village is attacked by a demon. When he is unable to reason with it, the prince kills the demon, but becomes cursed when it touches his arm. The village wise woman pronounces his fate: the curse will spread, corrupting his body and soul alike, and then it will kill him. There is no hope. But there is something he can do, to rise to meet his fate. He can journey far to the west, where great the great evil that created the wolf resides, where he must learn “to see with eyes unclouded by hate”.

So off he goes, straight into a war between the animal gods of the great Forest and the people of IronTown. There he must decide where his loyalties lie: with the gun-wielding people whose weapons led to the creation of the demon that wounded him, but who really just want to get their iron-works going, under the leadership of the amazing Lady Eboshi; or with the wolf gods of the Forest, led by the enormous Moro and her adopted human daughter, the beautiful and feral Princess Mononoke (San to her friends). And at the heart of this conflict is the Forest Spirit, the powerful god who personifies the danger and beauty of nature, and who may be able to lift Ashitaka’s curse…and who somebody wants very dead.


All things in moderation
One of the things that makes this story a cut above the rest is how it plays with the idea of good and evil. The main characters are all well-developed, and even the bit players have fairly substantial personalities (especially the women of IronTown). Anyway, there are no truly evil characters here, who do whatever the hell they please without thought for others (except maybe for the Monk). Lady Eboshi may not give a damn about the forest or the animals, and she may have some serious ambitions, but she also helps lepers and prostitutes, and she even cares about the men of Irontown. The people of Irontown are just trying to live their lives, and they have husbands and wives to care for. The wolves and the apes and the boars all care for the forest, but care little for each other. Asitaka embodies this balance, seeking the path that’s best for all concerned while fighting the demon’s curse. And the deer-looking Forest God may grant life, but he is also the dreaded Night Walker, and he also takes it away. In this movie, as in real life, things just aren’t that simple.


Gods and Demons
The mythology that underlies this movie is fascinating. The gods, the remnants of a mighty age, grow weak and stupid as their forests disappear, and they are terrified of becoming nothing more than stupid beasts. The humans change their world so quickly in such unnatural ways that the whole balance of nature is upset. A god may become a demon if it gives in to the base emotions of fear and hatred (kinda like that whole Sith thing George Lucas kept going on about, but here it all makes sense). The mythology is like the best fantasy – it’s big and it’s mysterious and filled with possibilities and the characters don’t understand it all, but isn’t that just how nature is anyway?


The Look
The animation is, to put it simply, bloody gorgeous. The characters are expressive and there’s plenty of attention to detail, though not so much that it distracts from the main thrust of the story. The demons look like something you wouldn’t want to meet, and the corruption of a god is something quite unsettling to behold. The Forest Spirit is a particularly amazing visual treat, especially during his transformation into or from the Night Walker. The animation fits the tone of the movie – the colours are dark and subdued when called for, and crisp and vibrant when appropriate.


The Voices
Most anime fans prefer subtitles to English dubbing. Me, I’m not all that fussy. I can forgive the almost inevitable asynchronization (that’s probably not a real word, but you know what I mean) of voices and characters’ lip movements, as long as the voices get across the right emotions, and as long as the dialogue doesn’t become hopelessly distorted in an attempt to reduce the sync’ing problem. Here the dubbing is actually exceptionally well-done, and the voice talent includes the likes of Billy-BobThornton, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver and Gillian Anderson. The actors do a fairly respectable job of getting their characters across, preserving the feel of the movie. This could be one of those cases where even the anime purists might be satisfied by the dubbing (if such a thing is at all possible).


Final Thoughts
This really is good stuff. Or did I say that already?