Released in Japan in 1997, Princess Mononoke is a relatively "special" one in Miyazaki's work.
First of all, it is a "costume film".
The film is set in the Muromachi period of Japan, from 1336 to 1573. The Muromachi period was different from the "unity of heaven and man" in the Kamakura period, and it was also different from the Azuchi-Momoyama period that stepped into modern civilization.
During this period, although the human gods and demons already had a consciousness boundary, they were still in a period of transitional transformation.
Second, it is relatively large.
"Princess Mononoke" has a large number of war scenes, as well as severed heads, stumps and other shots, which were planned to be pg13 when they were released, that is, children under 13 years old need to be accompanied by adults.
Moreover, the tone is dark and heavy.
The original promotional copy of "Princess Mononoke" was "Live", "Humans once killed the god of the forest".
In addition, the characters, including the male and female protagonists, are trapped by fate and cannot break free. Even at the end, the dispute between man and nature has not been resolved.
In order to "survive", the struggle between man and nature will inevitably not stop.
In this story, Shan, a young girl raised by the White Wolf God, Ashidaka, a teenager who is between human beings and nature, and Lady Black Hat, the hostess of Dadara City... Although you are in different positions, your identity is clear.
The most amazing thing is the "mountain beast god" in the film.
The mountain beast god in the film is a strangely imaged deer during the day, with white eyebrows and red faces, and a serene and majestic look. At night, it transforms into a self-reliant, luminous beast, and with each step it lands, plants sprout in its footprints and then disappear.
The "mountain beast god" created by Miyazaki has absorbed and gathered many artistic images, and has gathered a lot of achievements and new ones.
In this article, we will look at the faces behind the "Mountain Beast God".
At the beginning of the creation of "Princess Mononoke", Ghibli originally planned to use the "Princess Mononoke" of the 80s as a model, but because of the gap between the times and the gap, and the plot overlapped with "Totoro", the two works of "Princess Mononoke" and "The Journey of Shona" were finally merged into one.
In addition, many elements from Gilgamesh were absorbed.
In Gilgamesh, in order to obtain fir, the protagonist and his orc partner expedition to the Cedar Forest, and engage in a fierce battle with the guardian of the Cedar Forest, Kwawawa.
Kwawa was a half-beast god, and in the Narrative Poems of Girugameshu it records that it had scales, lion's paws and eagle claws, and horns on its head, but was said to be a large tree in its own right. Huwawa guards the vegetation of the cedar forest and does not allow outsiders to destroy it. But in this war, it became a loser, and its head was cut off and put into a metal barrel.
Among them, whether it is a semi-animal shape or a head cut off and put into a metal barrel, it fits the details of "Princess Mononoke". And Miyazaki once said: "When making this work, there were a lot of impressions from Gilgamesh. ”
Written during the Kamakura period, Uji Collected Relics is a collection of Buddhist stories and folklore, consisting of 15 volumes and 197 articles.
Among them, there is a story called "The Five-Colored Deer Affair".
A five-colored deer living in the mountains accidentally saved a traveler who fell into the water. The traveler promised the five-colored deer that he would never tell anything about touching it.
In the kingdom outside the mountain, the queen saw the five-colored deer in her dream, coveted its beautiful fur, and offered a heavy reward. The traveler, who had been rescued by the five-colored deer, told the king about the whereabouts of the five-colored deer because of his greed, and led a large army into the mountains.
The five-colored deer then appeared and told the king how he had rescued the travelers. The king then executed the ungrateful informants and ordered a nationwide ban on deer killing, and those who violated them would be executed.
Familiar?
Although Japan is known as the "eight million gods", most of these gods have been absorbed from foreign cultures such as China and India, and there are only a few real native gods, but only one in ten.
"The Five-Colored Deer Incident" is a five-colored deer that was born from the Buddhist story "Deer King Bunsheng", a five-colored deer living in the deep mountains of Tianzhu, and in the original story, it was a nine-colored deer living by the Ganges River.
The domestic animation film "Nine Colored Deer", released in 1981, is also based on the Dunhuang mural "Deer King BunshengTu", which is still a classic masterpiece that is still respected to this day.
In "Princess Mononoke", the head of the "Mountain Beast God" is rumored to be able to cure all diseases in the human world, so the red-nosed lai monk is ordered to enter the mountain and wants to hunt the "Mountain Beast God".
This coincides with the plot of the queen wanting nine-colored deer skins and the king leading the army into the mountains.
In addition to being related to the "Five-Colored Deer Incident" in the "Uji Collection story", there is another source for the "five-colored deer", namely Hanawa and Ichi's "Protector Boy".
In the "Protector Boy" comic, the boy falls into the water and is saved by the five-colored deer, but is seduced by the promise made by the hunter to lead the hunter to hunt the five-colored deer. Fortunately, the virgin knew about this and used the roots of the tree to transform into a deer. After the hunter shoots the "fawn" to bring it back, the "fawn" reverts to the root of the tree.
In this story, the mother and son of a five-colored deer live in a tree cave under a giant tree, which is very similar to the "Pool of Beast Gods" in Princess Mononoke.
In addition, Ashidaka in Princess Mononoke was cursed for killing evil gods, and snake-like things appeared on his arms. In The Protector Boy, the hunter is also under a curse, adsorbed on the back by a vampire, and the curse can only be removed by copying the scriptures with a pen made of the hair of a five-colored deer.
The "Mountain Beast God" of "Princess Mononoke" is literally translated as "Unicorn Beast" in some versions.
In Chinese mythology, the Qilin is a sacred beast that is juxtaposed with the "Four Spirits". Although the origins are different, "ren beast" and "rui beast" are its common points.
In the film, the "mountain beast god" controls life and death at the same time, and the unicorn in the legend not only symbolizes auspicious rui, but also can pass on the new life, such as the folk saying "qilin sending children".
The Japanese writer Aoi, in the book "Miyazaki Hayao's Code", pointed out that "Kirito has the meaning of 'huge thing'", and "Kirin" is "a shining deer", and based on this, he determined that one of the sources of the image of the "Mountain Beast God" was kirin.
Cornunos is the "horned god" of Celtic mythology, depicting a deer-headed man, sometimes depicted as a male with antlers. As the son of the earth, Korunus possessed great power and was the guardian and ruler of nature, both in charge of reproduction and over the underworld.
This is in line with the "Mountain Beast God" guarding the forest and controlling life and death.
But in Cornunos' carved portrait, he is not a god who is high above and overlooks everything, but is surrounded by various animals, which is an "equal" model.
Therefore, as a god of nature, Korununos should be one with everything he guards. He is not the ruler, but is interdependent and symbiotic with the grasses and animals of nature.
At the same time, the power of "rebirth" possessed by Korununos is also in line with the scene of the "Mountain Beast God" in the ending of "Princess Mononoke", after the fall of the "Mountain Beast God", the transformation style returns to the forest, so that everything is revived.
In addition to the above, the body of the "mountain beast god" is also believed to have absorbed the two predecessors of the Indian "Shiva god" - the beast god and the storm god, as well as the beast god in the "three brothers cave fresco", and the famous painting "Giant" by the Spanish painter Goya.
Some netizens believe that the prototype of the "Mountain Beast God" is the mythical beast Bai Ze in Chinese mythology.
Only one character, "Mountain Beast God", has so many cultural elements hidden behind it. Miyazaki's dedication to his work is evident from this. He has criticized Disney's work for being "wide in and wide out" and lacking depth. It is also the creation of "animation", but Miyazaki has never limited the field of creation to "showing children", but "popularization".
Take "Princess Mononoke", for example, 23 years have passed since its release, but Douban has scored more than 390,000 people, and the four-star and five-star praise rate is as high as 90%, which is enough to illustrate the influence of this film.
From Miyazaki's works, the audience can not only see the story constructed by the characters and emotions presented in the film, but also experience and feel the extension and refraction beyond the story. Affectionate but not routine, interesting and not superficial, this is the main reason why his works are liked by the public!