"Princess Mononoke" - 9/22/02 - 9/28/02

[Morticia]

This is a thread to discuss the technical and/or thematic merits of "Princess Mononoke."

The purpose being to foster intelligent discussion of films without resorting to "It's a piece of crap." or "It's the greatest film ever." (And so that we all can gain a bit of a film education from everyone.)

We'll discuss a new film each week. Either slade or I will post the film in this forum in advance, and lock the topic until the first day of discussion.

Thanks everyone. We are excited and we hope this works (we're open to any ideas of how to make it better).

****SPOILER WARNING**** of course this entire thread is going to be full of spoilers.

[SilentBob]

Finally the movie i voted for. I just have to comment on the beautiful animation and creative character design that Miyazaki has in all his movies. This was my first anime movie i had ever viewed, and i loved it. I love these mystical spirits, creatures and gods of the forest. It seems to be made in the olden times but refers very much to our time today with pollution, factories, man destroying for what he fears in and not realizing the consequences of their actions for the future generation.

I think i shall have to view the movie again, and come back and clarify the rest of my personal opinion later this week on the movie.


Oh Spirited Away is another Miyazaki winner

[DrDetroit]

WHat most impresses me of Mononoke is its sense of place. It is set in a real time, with lot interesting period detail being used as a backdrop, but playing with it in a certain way that makes it not exactly reality, but a fantastic version of reality. A place where animals, once the rulers of the wilderness, are being killed and robbed of their intelligence by humanity, whose need for expansion and material goods supercedes any sort of desire for the spiritual side of life that the animal Gods embody. A lot of the themes in the film are very relevant, as Silentbob pointed out.

Kiki's Delivery Service (the only other Ghibli-Miyazaki film I've had a chance to see) has a similar believability working for it. It's not like "it's a place where witches are REAL and that they ACTUALLY have MAGIC POWERS!!!" It's just putting you in that world, showing the rules that guide that world along, and showing what it takes to live in a place like that. I think that that's a really difficult to thing to convey, but Miyazaki does it so effortlessly that I'm not surprised that he's such a heralded figure.

For that reason, and of course his artistry. It's a beautiful film.

The only thing that bothers me is the innate Japaneseness.. that's not really so much the fault of the filmmakers but of my own cultural ignorance. Just stuff like Why is it so important for Ashitaka to not talk to his sister before he leaves the Amishi village? or Why, in the Japanese track, is the 'mother' wolf voiced by a man (or if I'm incorrect, a very mannish sounding woman)? But would it be a better film without these little ambiguous details? No, not at all. A country's films ... or art in general should reflect their cultural perspective as best it can I suppose, and not worry if some moron Canada boy (ie me) doesn't get the whole picture.

Anyways, I'm really impatient for Spirited Away and the eventual release (I'm hoping) of the remainder of Miyazaki's body of work. Hooray.

[limacharliewhiskey]

I've been an anime fan for close to 20 years now (starting way back in the Star Blazers-to-Robotech time period), and my preferred genre of anime titles has usually been contemporary or science fiction stories. At this time, I had heard of Hayao Miyazaki and some of the titles he had done (like Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and My Neighbor Totoro), but never got to see any of it, as none of his stuff had yet been released in the U.S.

My interest in anime had been waning over the past few years, as none of the new titles were that good or worth watching more than once. Maybe I had just grown up and matured.

Princess Mononoke restored my faith in anime. From the opening scenes, the jaw-dropping animation and the absolutely beautiful DVD transfer of this movie showed me that great anime films can still be made. I just need to do my homework and figure out which anime titles are the good ones worth watching, and just ignore the rest.

I admit, though, the story got a bit weird once the gods of the forest entered the storyline, and it got a bit confusing. Other than that, I thought this was a great movie that showed off anime at its best.