YOWZA! This film just gets better and better and butter. Bread n' butter. Which reminds me I need a sandwich.
Okay so I'm glad that I got to watch this film again. There's definitely a lot going on and it was difficult to digest the first time and even the second, but I'll try my best to make sense of my scattered musings about this film.
First is the title, Princess Mononoke...thanks for lecture, because I missed it Mononoke-hime means nothing. So San is the Princess of nothing. Which makes sense because everything is destroyed at the end, but obviously that's not the point of the title of being called princess. At the same time though it could be interpreted as royalty through conquering or negotiation have different lands that are under their control. However who really owns the land? You can say that you own France, but man France could be destroyed in a typhoon tomorrow, then what would you have...
I mean that's obviously unlikely to ever happen ever, but the point is that the use of titles and the idea of ownership is sort of pointless. Which brings me to my GWS class and consumerism and the futility of STUFF!
Also San I really understood as a character. She is like an animal and words do not mean that much to her. Often times I've noticed in Miyazaki's films there is the issue of displacement or not belonging. San is human, but does not identify or relate to the human world. Or Porco Rosso, as a pig he is not one of the guys. Or Kiki as a witch tries to fit in with the world of normality.
Shoot there are so many things I want to talk about with this film and don't know where to start it!
The little kudama, clickingheadedlittlemenbabiesforestspirits. I thought they were so interesting espescially because they are not really explained or their relationship to the DeerGod/Night Walker...they are his little minions and forest protectors, but they don't really protect the forest...at least not what was shown in the film.
Lady Eboshi and her badass ways.
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I totally agree with the owning France, then a typhoon, then what?! But I suppose that the title, irony and all, is still nevertheless a title that holds some amount of gravity in terms of metaphor and symbolism. She's a princess of nothing, but at the same time, she holds an immense amount of power. Hmm.
ReplyDelete-Lillian
I completely agree with your opening paragraph! I must have seen this film about 6 or 7 times now, and I'm still trying to work it out!
ReplyDeleteThe point you make about ownership is really interesting, and something I'm still trying to digest. This idea of San being owner of nothing is intriguing. As, obviously, she has a great deal of power.
I could say this is something about the transience and impermanence that is so often seen in the worlds of Miyazaki's films (Nausicaa and Laputa, particularly).