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copyright ©1999-2002
DigsMagazine.com.
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flick pick
| Princess
Mononoke [Mononoke
Hime] 1997
Directed by: Hayao Miyazaki
Written by: Neil Gaiman [English screenplay], Hayao Miyazaki
Starring: Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver, Gillian
Anderson, Jada Pinkett Smith, Billy Bob Thornton
Language: English
Look for it at the video store under: animation |
Watch it when you’re in the mood
for
something: artsy-fartsy,
fantastical
The critic says:
 ½/
5 the rating system
explained
Fun factor: /5 |
Plot synopsis
When Prince Ashitaka kills a
rampaging boar demon one day, he manages to save his village, but
suffers a horrible arm wound in the process. The wound is no normal
break or tear, but a demon curse, and the village’s oracle informs
Ashitaka that the curse will gradually spread through his body and kill
him. Though his time is limited, she instructs him to use it by heading
east, to the beast’s origin, where he should seek a way to crush the
evil that created the demon. This, she hints, may be his one chance for
a cure. In the east, Ashitaka finds a bustling mining village run by the
ambitious but humane Lady Eboshi, who takes in former prostitutes and
lepers shunned by the rest of society, and teaches them useful skills
like self-defense and ironwork … the latter of which will be put to
use in her plan to demolish the village’s forest surrounds in search
of iron. It’s these plans that start a fierce war between the humans
and the forest’s other animal inhabitants, among them, a wolf god
named Mori, and her adopted human daughter, San, the Princess Mononoke.
As the tension grows, Ashitaka, fueled both by his principles and a
growing love for the feisty wolf-girl Princess, attempts to find a way
to show both humans and animals that they can learn to live together, if
they don’t let their hatred destroy each other first.
Review With
all the buzz that animated features like Shrek, along with
everything that’s come out of the Pixar studios, have generated in
recent years, you might think it’s the miracle of computer animation
that we should thank, for turning a medium that was once pure kid stuff
into something more universally compelling. We oooh and ahhh over the
convincing depiction of fur textures and facial tics, stare slack-jawed
and dazzled by the complexity of those realistically-rendered worlds.
But then you happen to chance upon a movie like Princess Mononoke,
animated the old-fashioned way, and you realize, as you stare just as
slack-jawed and dazzled: it’s not about the advances of modern
technology. Miyazaki’s world doesn’t look real, with it’s
simplified lines and swathes of flat color, but frequently, it looks
much, much better: more lush, more frightening, more beautiful.
Visually, Princess Mononoke is just plain spectacular, but
the story’s pretty wonderful as well, providing complex characters
that can’t be boxed into a neat "good" or "bad"
label, along with all the action and grand moral quandaries that are the
hallmark of any good epic. And for anyone who feels a hint of
apprehension concerning the fact that it’s a dubbed version of the
original that you’ll see when you rent this flick, have no fear: with
the exception of Claire Danes as San, the English-language voices
capture the characters perfectly. Still, if you’re lucky enough to be
watching Princess Mononoke on DVD, breeze through the English
version first, but do go back and check out at least a little bit of the
movie with its original Japanese voicework. (Turn the English subtitles
on, of course.)
—reviewed by
Y. Sun
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