Princess Mononoke

  Last weekend, I watched Princess Mononoke, a 1997 animated movie by Hayao Miyazaki. I've felt the urge to post the review on my blog as the movie was significant enough for me to discuss with others. 

  First, a brief glance on the title of the movie. Mononoke could be transliterated as something like "a Ghost of sorrowful soul". So the whole title would mean something close to "The Prince of Sorrowful Souls". Just then, some profound questions arise thereupon; "What's so sad about these souls?", and "To whom these 'souls' belong?" 

<PLOT>

  To decipher the secrets hidden behind the title, it would be necessary to skim through the context and the sequences of the movie. The movie starts with a battle scene between a sacred boar and Ashitaka, the prospect ruler of his tribe Emishi. The boar is relentlessly raged against the humans. It tries to attack the peasants of the village. Ashitaka confronts the boar, despite acknowledging the fact that some mystical atmosphere surrounds its soul. Ashitaka manages to kill the sacred boar with his precise arrows, only to receive a purple mark of curse on his right arm. The shaman of the village reveals to the village that Ashitaka is cursed by the demon, and that he might find cure in the western lands.

  On his way to find cure, Ashitaka meets up with a monk named Jiko-bo, who tells him that he could find cure from Shishigami, the deer god of the sacred forest.

  Near the holy forest is the metallurgic town named Tataraba, led by a woman named Eboshi. Eboshi is a modern woman, who has overcome many chauvinistic sentiments to prosper her metal city. In the city, social outcasts are no longer marginalized. Former prostitutes work in the iron factories, lepers work in arsenals to produce rifles which are revolutionary at the time. Lastly, the men in the city use the weapons to fight the mountain dogs(wolves) and the gods of the forest. Eboshi conflicts with the gods of the forest as she tries to clear-cut the woods to acquire materials for producing metal.

  It turns out that Jigo is actually a mercenary who wants the head of Shishigami, the deer god. He would like to provide the emperor of Muromachi Japan the head of god for protection of his merchant group.

  San, the mononoke hime who was raised by wolves, attacks the iron town to kill Eboshi. She shows deep hatred towards humans, and thinks killing Eboshi would lead to the end of clash between the nature and humans. However, Ashitaka stops the attack by knocking out both San and Eboshi. Ashitaka is shot by a Tataraba woman's rifle while taking San back to her jungle. As San wakes up, she tries to kill Ashitaka with a blade, but gains trust in him when he tells her she is beautiful. San takes Ashitaka to a lake in the forest, and he is cured by the spirit of the forest(only the gunshot wound, and not the demonic mark). Ashitaka realizes that his mark cannot be cured anyhow. And that it is a destiny for him to suffer from it until the day he parishes.

Jiko-bo and Eboshi thrives to

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  According to the Japanese version of Wikipedia, Miyazaki said that the following 5 are the themes of his film.

1. 子供たちの心の空洞 (The voidness of children's minds).

2. 至る所に起こる差別 (Discrimination prevalent everywhere).

3. 人間と自然との関わり(The relationship between the men and the nature).

4. 人間の憎悪の増幅作用、殺戮へ突き進む闘争本能 (The amplification of hatred among humans, and the natural urge to violence which leads to mass killings).

5. 神秘主義と合理主義の対立(Conflict between mysticism and rationalism).
I would say that Miyazaki is placing more value on the earlier than the latter. Rationalism is the core essence of a civilized mind. According to this zeitgeist, the mankind is to overcome the natural hardships(or obstacles) in order to