The seventh feature film by the genius of ‘anime’ Hayao Miyazaki It was to be, as he himself had decided, the last of his career: an epic fantasy as brutal as it was beautiful about the complicated balance between the interests of man and the needs of nature. But, surely to his own surprise, ‘Princess Mononoke’ It was acclaimed as a masterpiece of animation cinema -and of cinema for that matter- and broke box office records in its country; and not only was it not the last film by the Japanese director, but it also opened the doors of the West to ‘Spirited Away’ (2001), and ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ (2004) and all the others he has done since. Today, 25 years after its premiere -this Friday it is being re-released in Spain in commemoration of that anniversary-, both its perfect combination of spirituality, violence, humor and romance as well as the collection of dazzling images that make it up continue to justify that impact.
It also remains clear to what extent it was an artistic detour for its author despite exhibiting the features that underlie the hallmark of Studio Ghiblithe production company that Miyazaki founded in 1985 with his colleague Isao Takahata: fusion of Japanese history, magic and folklore, complex female characters, cute or scary creatures and a powerful environmental message. If the films that had laid the foundations of his reputation, ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ (1988) and ‘Nicky, the Witch’s Apprentice’ (1989), were affable and optimistic works, with the arrival of the 90s the master began to feel uncomfortably in a world he perceived as empty and self-destructive. As a result, we say, ‘Princess Mononoke’ is a dark and angry playwatered with blood and adorned with severed heads and limbs.
the stars ashitakaa medieval prince who tries to put an end to a devastating conflict between the human being -who bets on the exploitation of the soil’s resources- and the animals and specters of the forests -who fight for survival-, and who on his way he meets a boar god transformed into a demon covered with worms, a ruler guided by industrialist ambitions, an all-powerful spirit that looks like a deer by day and turns into a translucent colossus at night and of course the titular young womana human warrior raised by wolves who actually calls herself Saint.
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To explain Miyazaki’s handling of these and other plot elements -ambitious mercenaries, lepers who manufacture weapons, invading samurai, benevolent fairies, warrior prostitutes- it is convenient to take into account not only the precepts of Japan’s native religion, Shintoism, and the long history of environmental disasters suffered by the country but also the concern that the director has always shown for avoid Manichaean distinctions between good and evil -in the world where the film takes place, the supposed villains protect the oppressed and the supposed heroes fall into fundamentalist fanaticism- and that unique ability to speak to children and adults at the same timewhich permeates his entire filmography but that no other of his fictions has shown as clearly as ‘Princess Mononoke’.
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In this quarter of a century, the shadow cast by the film has only lengthened. In the first place, because of the influence it has exerted on pop culture, by virtue of which, for example, it appeared referenced in an episode of ‘The Simpson’was a confessed inspiration for the creators of the TV series ‘Star Wars: The Clone Wars’ and served as a model for the best-selling video game ‘The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’; secondly, above all, because concern about climate change and the negative effects that man’s actions have on the planet has grown exponentially in this time, and because it is becoming more and more clear that, as Ashitaka and San , the only possible solution -in the environmental sphere but also in that of politics and in that of social and cultural development- passes through understanding, communication and collaboration. The pessimism that Miyazaki was prey to when she directed ‘Princess Mononoke’, in other words, did not prevent her from infusing the film with a firm belief in the resilience and overcoming capacity of the human being; that, as someone says in one of his scenes, “life is suffering and difficulties, the world and man are cursed, but even so there are reasons to continue living“.
25 years of ‘Princess Mononoke’: when Miyazaki became a giant