So bouncing off of Jose's post about Princess Mononoke originally being a Beauty and the Beast type of tale and the final film evolving far from that, there's still a slight love story that happens between Ashitaka and San that is healthy, innocent, and relevant to the plot. Now I'm all for platonic relationships, but the feelings Ashitaka and San develop for each other throughout the film actually act as a bridge between the two warring worlds, the primal forest and the industrial human civilization.
The characters and realms of the movie are organized in hierarchical opposition to each other but come together with Ashitaka and San. First we have the forest, ruled by the Deer God and populated with various animal tribes like Moro's wolf tribe, the Boar tribe led by Nago and later Okoto, and the Ape tribe. Then we have San at the edge of it, because she's apart of the wolf tribe and the forest world but she's not really one of them because she's human, so she's an outcast among the animals, called out and talked about regularly (Moro calls San neither human nor wolf).
Conversely, we have the human world led by the Emperor of Japan (like the Deer God, in conflict with each other but never directly in contact), then ruled by various lords and industrial leaders like Lady Eboshi and populated with humans in the industrial world. Then we have Ashitaka, who is human but he's not really apart of the humans included in the movie (true, they are outcasts) because he's of the tribe of nonethnic Japanese that have been oppressed and driven away by the Yamato and is not fully human anymore with the curse he was given. Like San, Ashitaka is an outcast in the world he came from and they have aspects of each other's worlds that bring them together to solve the dilemmas each of them face, forming a strong connection that could be love.
The story of Princess Mononoke is one that is about "'the marginals of history'" (Napier 233) but Ashitaka and San are the outcasts of their respective realms that collide and mix and their similarities bring them together to keep the human and natural world at peace with each other. Their love story (or just relationship) is a compromise between the two worlds.
I could honestly say so much about this movie but this really speaks to me as someone who does push for platonic male and female relationships and why Ashitaka and San's relationship transcends personal connection to another human, or in this case outcast.
This movie has been gorgeous and nearly flawless since I've been very little and all I want to do now is rewatch it (but I have to do Grave of the Fireflies now...)
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Cameron made a really good point in his post about expectation with this movie and I can't help but agree. Grave of the Fireflies is a really stunning and heartbreaking film but I needed less people telling me about it and I just needed to see it.
That being said, is this film only 88 minutes long? Takahata took his sweet time with those shots. This doesn't apply to the entire film, the beginning was fast paced and anything involving air raids is pretty quick and never dragged out. But the rest? I can totally understand leaving enough time for the audience to take in the atmosphere and mood and the struggle Seita and Setsuko are facing, but you don't need to hammer it in. It might be my hyperactive sensibilities kicking in (even though some of my favorite movies ever have a lot of moments to breathe and think), but this movie took its time. It made me think far too much of another Ghibli film, albeit more recent, The Secret World of Arrietty.
Arrietty is almost nothing like Grave of the Fireflies except for two reasons, a) they come from the same animation studio and b) they both take their sweet, sweet time for similarly short run times (Arrietty is a solid 90 minutes long). And yet for both their runtimes, I felt nauseatingly bored and lost and wondering when the atmosphere and script was going to pick up.
Grave of the Fireflies handled itself better than Arrietty (I almost hate to make the comparison), but the comparison still stands: why did both these directors spend so much time leaving the audience to swallow in the atmosphere and gravity of the narrative? Grave of the Fireflies is simple enough to understand and complex enough to be sympathetic towards so the long moments of silence and deadness are exhausting. Is the silence and deadness supposed to harken back to the ghosts that relive their pasts and Japan's hollowed soul from surrendering the war?
Fortunately for the movie, the characters, their relationship, and the narrative they experienced was compelling enough for me to keep watching and stay invested (I myself am a little sister with a very close older brother so I just kept thinking about him), and the designs and color palettes are gorgeous and thoughtful. But I unfortunately found myself wondering what time it was in a film that's supposed to have my whole attention, because it held onto its breath for too long.
(I also wish this unit on anime was longer, but I understand why we condensed it so much).
Hey Caitlin,
ReplyDeleteI do agree with your idea of how Grave took its sweet time. And sure these a notable and as you said needed, however I believe that the silences and deadness of these times were also somewhat of a tribute to the souls lost during the war? Like even the name of the film is for the soldiers and even the part where Setsuko asked why fireflies died so quickly tributes the fallen soldiers. So perhaps with the mood of the film, especially if you look at how people view this as an "anti-war" film, the silences were to show the respect of the soldiers that lost their lives
Oh and also, completely loved your comment of Mononoke, I could not agree with you more
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