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PRINCESS MONONOKE
1997
Director
Hayao Miyazaki
Starring
Yōji Matsuda
Yuriko Ishida
Yūko Tanaka
Akihiro Miwa
Runtime
133 minutes
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One of Hayao Miyazaki’s many masterpieces, PRINCESS MONONOKE was released in the U.S. by Disney subsidiary Miramax in 1999 into a mainstream culture that still largely thought of animated films as children’s fare with easily defined heroes and villains. MONONOKE defied that expectation with a complex, often violent tale that pitted warring clans and creatures against each other in 14th-century Japan. Its flawed, human characters were headed by Ashitaka, a cursed prince, fated to wander the land; San, a fierce princess raised by wolves; and Lady Eboshi, a woman warrior driven to build an iron-clad sanctuary in a chaotic world.
Against the encroaching human realm, the natural world responds with equal ferocity, with animal spirits on the rampage and the great Shishi-gami, its majestic god of everything wild, the ultimate protector and also the biggest target. With its magnificent depictions of pristine, old-growth wilderness—inspired by the ancient forests on Japan’s Yakushima Island—PRINCESS MONONOKE tantalizes viewers with its vision of nature as sacred, undercut by the bittersweet knowledge that the very existence of human civilization is leading to its demise.
Against the encroaching human realm, the natural world responds with equal ferocity, with animal spirits on the rampage and the great Shishi-gami, its majestic god of everything wild, the ultimate protector and also the biggest target. With its magnificent depictions of pristine, old-growth wilderness—inspired by the ancient forests on Japan’s Yakushima Island—PRINCESS MONONOKE tantalizes viewers with its vision of nature as sacred, undercut by the bittersweet knowledge that the very existence of human civilization is leading to its demise.