If you feel confused or even depressed, after watching "Princess Mononoke", there will always be a kind of happiness for the rest of your life. Although it is not a new film, but probably because of the low mood, I have watched it twice recently, and I feel that I am alive again, so I really have something to say. If I have to put it in a nutshell, it's that this is probably Miyazaki's most in-depth work to date. The big stroke of the big stroke is not worthy of so much box office at all.
Depth is reflected in the theme. It is said that the eternal themes of Japanese cinema are love and violence – perhaps nice, but if it is discussed too much, it is too ordinary. Miyazaki is characterized by the fact that the love and violence in his stories are actually set for deeper thoughts. Violence is something he has always opposed. From "The Valley of the Wind", it can be seen that the greater the power, the greater the pain caused, both for oneself and for the enemy. Miyazaki's thoughts are often too deep for children to comprehend, and his audience is mostly teenagers or older. His thoughts have two main contradictions: man and nature, and life and death.
In the earlier work, in the movie "Castle in the Sky", the previous contradiction already existed. In the story, the inhabitants of the sky city of Laputa, because they floated in the air, could not touch the vast land, which doomed them to perish, somewhat similar to our proverbial "ungrounded" will produce disasters. The military that tried to destroy Laputa was unable to overcome the lust for money and eventually destroyed itself. In the end, Laputa, who should have been destroyed by the spell chanted by the girl Hilda and the boy Xiaojie, did not disappear because a large tree on the island was deeply rooted in the soil of the entire island, but flew into the distant sky. These three points show that challenging the laws of nature will have serious consequences, and our fate is controlled by nature, and nature can punish us and forgive us. This was Miyazaki's early environmental thinking. Similarly, there is the movie "Valley of the Wind": the girl Nausicaa learns the secret of wind and water to build forests and transform deserts, stop humanity from killing nature, and finally save humanity.
But these works are only Miyazaki's early environmentalist ideas, or simply, ideas that are more acceptable to the general public under the influence of the tide of commercial films. Miyazaki eventually formed the idea of man and nature and began to doubt the meaning of environmental protection. And it is not necessary to say that human greed is endless and cannot be easily satisfied - the most basic desire of man is the desire to survive. In order to survive, it is impossible not to ask nature for supplies. The contingent of people is so large that what they seek is bound to be even greater, and it is inevitable to break the balance of nature and provoke nature. After the disaster is settled, man rebuilds his homeland again, is once again huge, once again angers nature, and so on, peaceful coexistence may be just a dream. The manga "Valley of the Wind", which ended many years later, completely negated Nausicaa's efforts and completely shattered the dream of peaceful coexistence.
This leads to the second contradiction: life and death. No matter how much we sympathize with the devastated nature, we are still human beings, still struggling for the needs of human survival. Death is a road, but after all, it is a dead end, it is the end. Humanity as a whole needs to survive, and as individuals, we are equally unwilling to give up survival. In the endless contradiction between man and nature, we can only fight for survival. So there is more violence and love.
However, because the story of the manga "Valley of the Wind" is too large as a whole, the impact is also limited. So there was "Princess Mononoke" (after half a day of talking, I finally got to the point).
Princess Mononoke reveals both themes thoroughly, but does not give an explanation. Fantasia occupies the mountain and mines iron ore, only to survive for her people. Stopped by the forest animals, fierce fighting ensued. The fierce god punishes the world with a curse, and the unicorn god punishes the world with death. Asuka tries to find a way for the world to coexist with nature, but fails, and finally can only say to Princess Mononoke: We are still alive. At the end, Miyazaki still has a glimmer of life - the kirin god is dead, the earth is rejuvenated, and a new sprout has begun. Seeing the end of this mixture of sorrow and joy, I still can't help but think: nature's punishment has made human efforts to build a bubble, going back decades and hundreds of years, but the destruction of forests is a natural regression of thousands of years, and mankind will face a harsh reality for a long time. Leaving this line of life, human beings will still be strong and will in turn harm nature. All the wars and all the violence did not change this cycle—perhaps it began a long, long time ago, from the accounts of the ancient flood ages of the different peoples that remain today.
For the characters, the young Asuka should be said to be the most handsome juvenile image created by Miyazaki Hayao, from the perspective of personality charm (the word seems to be used a little too much), although later in "Hal's Moving Castle" Hal's appearance is gorgeous and gentle inside, but after all, the fairy tale color is too strong, so it is a little distant. Asuka, with his willingness to lend a helping hand, promised a thousand gold, in order to rescue the people, he did not hesitate to put his body under the curse of slow decay, which can be described as sentient and righteous, and it is even more intimate. The young girl Shan is taken from the allusion of the "wolf child", which deeply portrays her inner demons and the pain of her inability to become a human or a wolf. Two men who endured pain, both physically and mentally, finally broke the barrier. The climax of the two of them jointly lifting the head of the unicorn god to plead for forgiveness is certainly magnificent, and at the end, the two stand on the hillside of the return to the green, and the bird says to Shan, "I will come to see you, ride the antelope and come" is more peaceful and natural like a pastoral song, abandoning the old cliché of the teenager returning to his hometown with the girl, and the aftertaste is more distant.
As for the music, this time it was very different, and Instead of letting his favorite piano be the main melody, his favorite orchestra was adopted, and the music was unusually swinging. As for the theme song, Miriamichi's false voice is very loud and melodious. At the end, when everything is revived, Hisaishi's piano finally appears, smooth and peaceful. Sometimes there is not even any background music, but it is also very clever: when the pig god becomes a fierce god, add a restless accompaniment music, then the unicorn god appears, suddenly quiet, without any sound, as the picture switches and repeatedly, this is the symbol of rest of the kirin god, with silence is better than sound. It seems that both in music and content is a big breakthrough.
It is said that Miyazaki had planned to close the pen at the end. But in fact, it did not, and later produced "The Cat's Reward" and "Hal's Moving Castle". But both of these works are fairly strong in fairy tales, and there is no such profound idea as "Princess Mononoke". Perhaps he is really tired, with this story without an end to bother himself for many years, or he has to "live well together" as a right and interest, no longer explore this issue.
Finally, something else. It is said that Miyazaki was determined not to compromise with the business world during the production of "Princess Mononoke" – that is, to say, not to let the mundane environmentalist ideas in commercial films be the theme. Sure enough, we know the depth of his thinking on this issue, but when "Princess Mononoke" was introduced by CCTV, it was deliberately time to change the title and replace it with "Magical Princess" - Shan has no magic at all, is it because she thinks this title is too scary? Many of these characters have also changed their names, such as the white wolf to a mountain dog, and the fierce animal into a friend of humans... Sure enough, I was afraid of scaring the child. "Princess Mononoke" is not very suitable for children, there are many bloody fights, showing the cruelty of survival, not to mention a theme that is not easy to understand. The most intolerable transformation made by CCTV is to transform the knotted monk at the end of the original drama into "I have seen the power of nature under this time" and sighed with a smile when he saw the earth rejuvenate. What he regretted was that he did not complete the task of killing the Kirin God to obtain the head of the Kirin God, perhaps some self-deprecating meaning, self-deprecating these hardships (can refer to his hard work in order to obtain the head of the Kirin God, can also be understood as the hardships of the struggle between man and nature and then struggle and then fail, privately think that it can also be understood as Miyazaki Hayao's self-deprecation) are in vain. After this kind of words became an admiration for the forces of nature, the film's thinking was suddenly reduced to the environmentalist ideas that Miyazaki himself had called for many years. The purpose is nothing more than to show the children the plot at the same time, and then give them the mainstream education of protecting the environment and loving the flowers and trees. Fortunately, it is not bad to only watch the plot. Probably when it was first released in Japan, it was like this, so big box office still ran to the plot and not thinking. The purpose of the business was achieved. I really don't know if Miyazaki will feel lonely. Maybe it's because of loneliness that it's back?
Noriaki Yōn-e: Princess Mononoke (1997)
To watch the first release, please pay attention to my eponymous public account: Classic Movie Recommendation Officer