Smooth As Silk

Good morning Consumers, This is Please Consume, the newsletter that loves movies more than Nick Cage loves taking a paycheck.

This week, with the release of The Boy and the Heron coming to the US. We saw it as a perfect opportunity to talk about one of the greatest filmmakers of all time.

Mr. Hayao Miyazaki.

Kick us off, Caleb…

Princess Mononoke (1997)

Written by Caleb Madden

I spent a large portion of my life having never seen a single Miyazaki movie. I know, I know, it’s a very heavy and sad truth. But, once I saw Spirited Away I knew that I had made a grave mistake not watching these movies for so long. 

Since then I have made it my mission to watch nearly every Miyazaki movie I could (which is wonderfully easy now with Max) and I have to say that my favorite of his films by far is a little joint called Princess Mononoke, which I think is actually a perfect movie.

So let's talk about it.

Those Were the Days of Gods and Demons

Princess Mononoke follows the story of a young man named Ashitaka as he travels through the land of ancient Japan searching for a cure for his demon illness. Already, things are getting rad as hell. Along the way Ashitaka becomes involved with what is basically a war between a human village and the spirits and animals that guard the forest. Really what Princess Mononoke is about is the conflict and tension between human advancement and the earth as it was “meant” to be. 

It is also worth noting that this movie had been knocking around in Miyazaki’s head for a LONG time. With many auteurs it is clear that there is one big idea for a movie in their head and they usually spend their entire careers trying to make that thing or remake that thing. Princess Mononoke is that idea for Miyazaki. His films almost always relate in some way to the tension between human life and the nature or spirit world. And boy does this movie deal with those themes.

Smooth As Silk; The Perfect Thing For Ruling the World

I know that I always say I could talk about a movie forever, but I really could easily write a 50 page essay about every aspect of this movie that. So for the sake of the reader I will just touch on a few of the aspects that make this movie perfect in my opinion. 

First, the visuals. I know it kind of goes without saying that a Miyazaki movie has incredible visuals, but this movie is truly incredible with what they are able to accomplish with the animation here. The scope and action sequences of this film alone seem impossible to animate yet they did it. Films like Howl’s Moving Castle have some massive, action packed scenes but they wither in comparison to the visuals in this movie. 

Second, the score, written by Joe Hisaishi (long time Miyazaki collaborator). The score for this film is actually perfect. It easily can hang in with some of the great scores like Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings,  or Indiana Jones. The incredible soaring loudness combined with the often cute and playful notes create a symphony that is unparalleled. Just go right now and listen to “The Demon God I & II.” Tell me that isn’t straight from Return of the King!

Even If All the Trees Return

There is a line at the end of the film spoken by  a bystander: “Huh, I didn’t know the forest spirit made the flowers grow!” This line perfectly encapsulates the third thing I want to talk about with this movie: Its writing and characterization.

The Disney version of this film would have the humans be evil and horrible people who deserve to be destroyed by the forest gods. But that’s the thing, this isn’t a Disney movie.

It's a Miyazaki movie.

The grayness that this film exists in is so beautiful. Yes, the humans are destroying the forest and that’s bad but they also are caring for prostitutes and lepers (groups of people the forest and its gods have no love or compassion for). Yes, Moro the wolf god wants to kill all humans but she also raised a human girl as her own and didn’t leave a baby to die in the woods.

The needle that Miyazaki threads is unbelievable. The humans saw the forest spirit as this uninterested being that can heal all their ills if they kill it, but by the end, they see that the forest spirit (and really the relationship between humans and the forest) is much more complex than they think.

Writers discussion:

Today’s Scene