Ghibli films!
Sunday, 18 May 2003 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
taimatsupfff.. There was a weekend. I woke up early on Saturday but didn't actually make it out of the door till mid-afternoon. I went off to Robert's - we had thought of going to Blacklight in Reading but in the end we were floppy, so we watched 'Princess Mononoke' and 'State and Main' on DVD instead.
Princess Mononoke was the last of the three Studio Ghibli DVDs my father brought me from Japan - the others were 'Spirited Away' and 'My Neighbour Totoro'. The defining characteristics of those two are: an appeal to children (with children as the main characters); the featuring of children whose parents are ill, absent, in danger, or lost somehow; a strong sense of care for the environment and community with nature, including nature-spirits; and a whimsical sense of humour.
'Princess Mononoke' shares some of these characteristics, but not others. The focus is very definitely on nature and the environment. The film centres on the conflict between the forest and its animals and spirits, and the humans who fell trees for their ironworks. Each side fears the other, and only Ashitaka, a boy from another region, wants to see them working together. The moral of the tale is plainly 'Thou shalt respect nature and use its resources wisely.'
The hero and heroine of the story, San (Princess Mononoke) and Ashitaka, are early teenage at most; once again, there are younge people at the centre of the action. As in both the other films I've seen, they associate closely with nature spirits (cf. Chihiro and Hakku in 'Spirited Away', and Satsuki and Mei with the Totoro in 'My Neighbour Totoro'). Ashitaka has a pet elk, Yakul, who while not actually supernatural, seems preternaturally intelligent and loyal. San is the adopted daughter of Moro, the wolf-god of the forest, and considers herself a wolf.
Ashitaka is out on his own (save for Yakul), questing for the cause of his supernatural wound. San was abandoned by her relations as a sacrificial distraction, to prevent Moro attacking them, and hence hates all humans. Once again, we have children with no parents around as out protagonists.
As for the conflict between man and the wild, it is made very clear from the start of the film, where a huge maddened boar-demon, covered in worm-like excrescences, attacks Ashitaka's village and scars him with a wound that will claim his life unless he finds its source. It turns out that the boar was poisoned and turned into a demon by a bullet from the new guns which Lady Eboshi is making at the ironworks. So mankind is not just killing the forest, but actively poisoning it.
There is barely an iota of humour in the entire film. There is not one major laugh to be had. Even the fat hunters wandering about in bearskins aren't funny. Of the three films, this one has the most serious point to be made, but its near-total lack of any humour at all is startling. There are a few whimsical elements and characters involved - the tiny kodama-spirits who make their heads rattle spring to mind, as do Toki and Kuroku, an entertaining couple. As light relief, though, they just don't cut it against the sheer weight of the film's moral message.
'Totoro' is also very much focused on the relationship between nature and mankind, but the point being made is about children's natural harmony with nature. Nowhere in that film is the natural world being attacked. 'Spirited Away' shows us ill-intentioned as well as benevolent spirits, but the focus isn't specifically on nature-spirits. Chihiro is helped throughout her captivity and servitude in the world of spirits by Hakku, a young boy who is close to the sorceress who oversees the establishment in which they all live (a magical bath-house for gods and spirits, which comes to life in an abandoned theme-partk at night). Only at the very end do we find out that he is a river-spirit.
In those two films, the humour comes easily, because the message we are meant to take away is much lighter. The humorous situations and characters aren't hopelessly squashed under the weight of a timeless battle between good and evil, the Weaver and the Wyld (argh, RP invading RL, argh!).
I don't know that 'Princess Mononoke' could have been improved without becoming a totally different film. Its subject-matter *isn't* funny, or light-hearted, or whimsical, and there's no requirement for it to be so. It's just that given the medium (animation), the ages of the lead characters, and the other films the studio has made, one comes to it with expectations which are not met. It's beautifully animated, and an involving story - it's just quite, er, heavy, when you're not expecting that.
[I note that another film Studio Chibli has made, 'Grave of the Fireflies', is about two children surviving World War II, and that isn't a laugh a minute either. I haven't seen it, though, so I can't make detailed comments.]
Princess Mononoke was the last of the three Studio Ghibli DVDs my father brought me from Japan - the others were 'Spirited Away' and 'My Neighbour Totoro'. The defining characteristics of those two are: an appeal to children (with children as the main characters); the featuring of children whose parents are ill, absent, in danger, or lost somehow; a strong sense of care for the environment and community with nature, including nature-spirits; and a whimsical sense of humour.
'Princess Mononoke' shares some of these characteristics, but not others. The focus is very definitely on nature and the environment. The film centres on the conflict between the forest and its animals and spirits, and the humans who fell trees for their ironworks. Each side fears the other, and only Ashitaka, a boy from another region, wants to see them working together. The moral of the tale is plainly 'Thou shalt respect nature and use its resources wisely.'
The hero and heroine of the story, San (Princess Mononoke) and Ashitaka, are early teenage at most; once again, there are younge people at the centre of the action. As in both the other films I've seen, they associate closely with nature spirits (cf. Chihiro and Hakku in 'Spirited Away', and Satsuki and Mei with the Totoro in 'My Neighbour Totoro'). Ashitaka has a pet elk, Yakul, who while not actually supernatural, seems preternaturally intelligent and loyal. San is the adopted daughter of Moro, the wolf-god of the forest, and considers herself a wolf.
Ashitaka is out on his own (save for Yakul), questing for the cause of his supernatural wound. San was abandoned by her relations as a sacrificial distraction, to prevent Moro attacking them, and hence hates all humans. Once again, we have children with no parents around as out protagonists.
As for the conflict between man and the wild, it is made very clear from the start of the film, where a huge maddened boar-demon, covered in worm-like excrescences, attacks Ashitaka's village and scars him with a wound that will claim his life unless he finds its source. It turns out that the boar was poisoned and turned into a demon by a bullet from the new guns which Lady Eboshi is making at the ironworks. So mankind is not just killing the forest, but actively poisoning it.
There is barely an iota of humour in the entire film. There is not one major laugh to be had. Even the fat hunters wandering about in bearskins aren't funny. Of the three films, this one has the most serious point to be made, but its near-total lack of any humour at all is startling. There are a few whimsical elements and characters involved - the tiny kodama-spirits who make their heads rattle spring to mind, as do Toki and Kuroku, an entertaining couple. As light relief, though, they just don't cut it against the sheer weight of the film's moral message.
'Totoro' is also very much focused on the relationship between nature and mankind, but the point being made is about children's natural harmony with nature. Nowhere in that film is the natural world being attacked. 'Spirited Away' shows us ill-intentioned as well as benevolent spirits, but the focus isn't specifically on nature-spirits. Chihiro is helped throughout her captivity and servitude in the world of spirits by Hakku, a young boy who is close to the sorceress who oversees the establishment in which they all live (a magical bath-house for gods and spirits, which comes to life in an abandoned theme-partk at night). Only at the very end do we find out that he is a river-spirit.
In those two films, the humour comes easily, because the message we are meant to take away is much lighter. The humorous situations and characters aren't hopelessly squashed under the weight of a timeless battle between good and evil, the Weaver and the Wyld (argh, RP invading RL, argh!).
I don't know that 'Princess Mononoke' could have been improved without becoming a totally different film. Its subject-matter *isn't* funny, or light-hearted, or whimsical, and there's no requirement for it to be so. It's just that given the medium (animation), the ages of the lead characters, and the other films the studio has made, one comes to it with expectations which are not met. It's beautifully animated, and an involving story - it's just quite, er, heavy, when you're not expecting that.
[I note that another film Studio Chibli has made, 'Grave of the Fireflies', is about two children surviving World War II, and that isn't a laugh a minute either. I haven't seen it, though, so I can't make detailed comments.]
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Date: Monday, 19 May 2003 05:20 am (UTC)harrowing filmage
Date: Monday, 19 May 2003 12:08 pm (UTC)( ok, so maybe that's a slight exaggeration )
it's an incredible film, well done & very moving, but fairly relentlessly bleak.
by comparison Princess Mononoke is a lot lighter in mood, there are several moments which usually elicit a quiet chuckle from my direction ( even if the humour is somewhat dark ). despite the insistent moral underlay, i find the whole film works as a coherent piece of emotional symphony from which any more overtly comic elements would detract.