PRINCESS MONONOKE

PRINCESS MONONOKE (1997) ***1/4

Reviewed 10/31/99

Two years after its release in Japan, Princess Mononoke finally comes to the U.S. with much advanced buzz. Mononoke is Hayao Miyazaki's most ambitious film, and while ambitiousness should merit admiration, particularly in filmmaking, fulfillment of ambition is what makes masterpieces. Mononoke does not quite reach that level, not that Miyazaki doesn't already have one or two residing in his oeuvre. I'd argue Miyazaki's biggest strength is his ability to make the simple seem profound, which is why I think My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service are his best films. When he tries to go epic with films like Mononoke and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, we get mixed bags. While Miyazaki never achieves anything less than majesty in fashioning his fantasy worlds, he gets too wrapped up in the convoluted plot details of epics. What results in this case is that while Mononoke's message -- that humans must balance their needs with nature's -- is clear, how it is delivered feels overly cumbersome.

Despite the title of the film, the actual protagonist is Prince Ashitaka, the rare male protagonist for Miyazaki. Set during the Muramachi era of Japan, Ashitaka is wounded during a battle with a crazed boar god-turned-demon. The wound comes along with a curse that will slowly devour his soul and kill him. Setting out on a quest to cure himself and discover the source of the boar god's dementia, Ashitaka comes to Iron Town, which is encroaching upon a great forest to create the town's namesake metal. Quickly, Ashitaka finds himself in the middle of a conflict between Iron Town's chieftain, Lady Eboshi and the forest's guardians, one of whom is Princess Mononoke, a human raised by wolves.

The Miyazaki film Mononoke most resembles is Nausicaä. Like Nausicaä, many different factions vie for power. Here they are Lady Eboshi, a samurai clan who wants her land, and the Emperor of Japan, represented by Jigo, a monk. The film starts with a rampaging giant beast and ends with charging boars that mirror the enraged ohmu of Nausicaä. The head of the forest spirit, Shishi-Gami, plays much the same part of Nausicaä's captive baby ohmu, and in both films, a potential romantic interest starts off as an apparent enemy who comes to side with the protagonist. Again, the story is about people destroying nature to survive, but as in all of Miyazaki's films, things aren't quite so simple. This isn't a battle between good and evil but between value systems. No one is a true villain. What Miyazaki makes clear above all else is how dogmatic beliefs, noble or not, can make enemies of all Others, solving problems for no one.

The American version of Mononoke is a good dub by general anime standards, but even with a nice translation by Sandman-creator Neil Gaiman, the American voices sound out of place. Minnie Driver fares best as Lady Eboshi as her English accent gives Eboshi a certain air. The other voices, which include that of Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, and Billy Bob Thornton, don't quite gel.

Mononoke is easily the most graphically violent of Miyazaki's films with multiple dismemberments and decapitations, but very little is gratuitous. Some American critics have said the film is not for children as if that were bad. This only shows the short-sightedness of these critics who cannot see anything beyond American culture. In Japan, anime is made for all sorts of age groups, so to act like they should only be for children is simply wrong-headed.