"It is human nature and sin to want to have everything between heaven and earth"
This quote comes from Miyazaki's animated film Princess Mononoke.
It's ridiculous to say that it was the villain character High Priest in the film who said this.
Knowing that what you are doing is full of sins, but still obeying your own desires, is both ironic and realistic.
Unlike fantasy works such as Castle in the Sky and Spirited Away, the scenes of Princess Mononoke are even more brutal. The reason for these cruel scenes is, in the final analysis, only the word "contradiction".
In the film, we are shown the contradiction between men and women, the contradiction between the powerful, the contradiction between the powerful and the commoner, and the contradiction between the commoner and the life, or three or two sentences, or a large length, the background of the society at that time is particularly clear.
When the bird brings the wounded soldier back, unlike when we first pay attention to whether the person is okay, the soldier's wife is most worried about "the foot is broken, so how will you work in the future?" ”
In a word, we know the cruelty of reality at that time: in that era when physical integrity was not necessarily enough to eat, how to survive was the top priority, and those who could not work at home undoubtedly became a burden.
"It's okay that you gave the wolf something to eat"
"I can find a good man later"
After saying this, everyone around them laughed, but under the pressure of life, this may not be a heartfelt word.
The division of labor in the iron city is that women are responsible for ironmaking, and they have to step on the bellows for four days and five nights.
The iron forged is given to the men in exchange for rice for survival, and the road to rice exchange also experiences various dangers.
Even after working so hard, I was barely able to eat.
The simple requirement of working hard and then "eating enough" is unattainable outside the city.
When Asuka first met the High Priest, he told us the social background of the time from the High Priest: endless fighting, poverty and hunger plus epidemics, and countless people who ended up hating.
Although there is no extensive introduction, the contradiction between men and women is told through the mouths of men and women in the city
There is not much content, but it is enough for us to feel the difference in the status of men and women.
Compared to the outside world, the iron city controlled by Fantasy Ji is like a paradise.
After all, the indisputable paradise is only a fantasy, and the nobles in the outside world see that there is a profit here, intend to cooperate with The Illusion, and finally send an army to grab it.
The paradise in the eyes of mankind, the iron smelting field, is a demonic existence in the eyes of the wolf girl Shanshan.
Trees were cut down, rivers were polluted, creatures were hunted, and the culprit in all this was the iron smelter. As the supreme person in charge of the iron smelting, as long as she is killed, everything can be restored to its original state.
Shanshan has been unsuccessful in many actions, but she still strives for it. It's just that this effort is ultimately futile.
What if Fantasy Ji was killed?
It is likely that a new city lord will emerge to continue to preside over the work of iron smelting.
Piaf is innocent of his sins, and the Qilin Forest contains a lot of iron, which is destined to attract greedy people.
Here the theme is sublimated into the contradiction between "man and nature"
The inadequacy of human resources is alleviated by plundering nature.
In the film, it just shows us a beginning, the Unicorn Forest is destroyed on a small scale, and there are many more resources that can be plundered later. If this is the end, the Unicorn Forest has been exploited and destroyed, then where should humans go to ask for resources?
There is a master in the Unicorn Forest, the Kirin Beast, but from beginning to end, the human side has no desire to communicate with the Kirin Beast, and even wants to obtain the head of the Kirin Beast as a collection.
This comes from human arrogance.
In the concept of human beings, unicorn beasts are beasts after all, and they cannot be equated with humans, nor are they qualified to communicate with humans on the same level.
"If I want it, you have to give it, or I'll grab it" is human attitude towards nature.
Compared to other films, in Princess Mononoke, the human characters are more like villains, plundering wildly through advanced means at their disposal, muskets, artillery, etc. Whether this behavior is reasonable or not, as long as I am strong, I have the final say.
Whether man and nature can coexist in harmony, the movie does not tell us the answer, nor can it tell us the answer, after all, the human heart is too complicated.