Story (Spoilers!)
Princess Mononoke opens with the main character, Ashitaka, killing a boar demon before it destroys his village, becoming cursed in the process. Because of this, his tribe tasks him to venture to the far west to seek a cure. On his journey, he meets an ominous monk, Jigo, who informs him of the
Great Forest Spirit who can cure his curse. Leaving Jigo, he finds Irontown, a city run by Lady Eboshi, built on the trade of iron mined from the deforested mountains it’s surrounded by. At night, wolves and a girl that commands them, San, attack the city to kill Eboshi for her relentless savagery against the forest and the animals that live in it. Ashitaka stops the fight between them, carrying the unconscious San out of the city before being shot from behind, killing him later. Eboshi is actively engaged in war with a tribe of boars, led by Okkoto, and samurai, led by Lord Asano. Eboshi wants to behead the Great Forest Spirit and trade it to the Emperor in return for protection from Asano, with help from Jigo. Ashitaka is resurrected by the Great Forest Spirit, finds Irontown besieged by Asano, and heads out to warn Eboshi. The boars are killed in battle and the samurai wear their skins, following San and the dying Okkoto to the pool of the Great Forest Spirit. Okkoto succumbs to his wounds, becoming a demon and taking San with him. Moro, the wolf god, intervenes on the behalf of San and Ashitaka saves her before the Great Forest Spirit takes the lives of the dying gods. Eboshi manages to behead the Spirit, which responds by destroying the landscape in search of its head. Ashitaka and San retrieve the head, return it to the Spirit, and the land is restored to its former glory, from before humanity savaged it.
My Review (Also spoilers?)
Violence begets violence. That is Ashitaka’s curse. Through his journey to the west, Ashitaka encounters nothing but violence for the sake of greed or carelessness. As he does so, his curse grows more powerful, reflecting the growth of his hatred for those who destroy nature for personal gain. And as violence is infectious, seen in vivid gory detail in this film, as is peace. Martin Luther King Jr. knew this when he wrote in Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy, instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it […] In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that” (King, 67). Mankind throughout the film multiplies violence against itself. War is not simply man vs. man. War devastates cultures, civilizations, populations, but this film–and The Thin Red Line from Terrence Malick–argues that war primarily devastates nature. War is between man and nature. The development of the gun, traditionally used in Japanese cinema as a metaphor for the atomic bomb, reflects man’s ultimate power, and the closest it has come to using a weapon to devastate a planet. Eboshi kills the Forest Spirit, nature, with a gun (or the atomic bomb), leading to nature striking back and annihilating the world. As violence begets violence, often peace begets peace. Ashitaka ends the conflict and restores the earth to its former beauty by committing a climactic act of peace rather than violence.
In conclusion, Princess Mononoke is a cautionary tale about the war we wage with the planet every day. Greed and vengeance are not worth the death of all that is beautiful in the world. Peace with each other and peace with nature are the only way to survive, and this film argues this point beautifully. It doesn’t overstay its welcome. It doesn’t pound home its point. Like the Great Forest Spirit, it makes its point with grace and carries on, and I am grateful to have saved this film for the opener to my student-directed project, and my rating for it is not given lightly.
9/10
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