I don't know why I haven't seen this one until now. It is, to put it lightly, a fantastic movie. Not my favorite Miyazaki film or even my favorite Studio Ghibli film, but a great film none-the-less. Princess Mononoke has a certain type 'heroes journey' feel to it. Other works by the same company also have this same feeling but the messages of those movies didn't strike me as being the main theme like this one is. The story follows the plight of Ashitaka. A young warrior who lives in a small village and is one day attacked by a giant demonic boar. Ashitaka takes down the boar but has his arm cursed by it as he strikes it down with his trusty bow-and-arrow. After this unfortunate event, he is told that he must leave the village and never come back as the curse will slowly spread throughout his body and kill him. Ashitaka decides to look for the Forest Spirit who may be able to cure his ill but instead comes across two groups at war: a small mining town who is ruining the neighboring forest in their search for iron and the forest spirits who are lead by the one and only Princess Mononoke. This brings me to my first reason why I love this movie. Ashitaka doesn't take sides. The film doesn't say that we should 100% protect the nature and not continue developing nor does it say that we should bend nature to our will and mine it dry. Ashitaka is only entangled in this for one reason at the start: to cure his curse. This creates a scenario where he needs to find a way to appease both sides without insinuating any more violence. Because Ashitaka has to not take too much to either sides he ends up befriending both Princess Mononoke and most of the mining village's people. This is firstly a story of compromise but I think it is also a tale of how you can take things too far and get wrapped up in things that can hurt your cause. Princess Mononoke is one of those Ghibli movies that really makes you think about the morals that it is trying to present. For that it is a really great film.
Princess Mononoke is fantastic!
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