Competition
Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime)
Passion comes from suffering - at least in the opinion of Japanese
animator Hayao Miyazaki: "My eyesight has gotten worse, and I have painsin
my shoulders, hips and thighs," he self-diagnoses. The 56-year-old is living
proof that the production of an animated film is hard work. He drew over
80,000 of the 140,000 stills in his remarkable comic epic Princess Mononoke
himself. It was well worth the effort - the $24 million, intermittently
violent eco-fairy tale is already considered a masterpiece of animated
cinema. The heroine of the story, set in the Muromachi period, (1333-1568)
is the young girl San who was brought up by wolves. She can speak with
animals and spirits, but doesn't care particularly for humans. They keep
trespassing into San's realm, the forest, in order to wreak havoc. A community
of social misfits, who produce and refine iron and other materials and
expand their living space at the cost of nature, is especially persistent.
When a descendant of the displaced Emishi tribe appears, San is torn between
humans and her loyalty to the forest deities, and stands before the most
important decision of her life.
Miyazaki's breathtaking mixture of fairy tale, action comic and ecological
manifesto attracted an audience of 12 million in Japan, shattering local
box-office records as it pushed Steven Spielberg's ET to the number two
spot on the list of the most successful films in Japan - perhaps soothing
Hayao Miyazaki's pain in some modest way...
Synopsis
In 1997, all of Hollywood's blockbusters were crushed at the Japanese
box office by a domestic film from animator Hayao Miyazaki - his bloodthirsty
$20 million animated feature Mononoke Hime (The Princess Mononoke) is the
most successful movie ever released in Japan.
Mononoke Hime, which took more than 15 years to make, reprises the
themes which have always been essential to Miyazaki's films - conservation
of nature and respect for minorities. The film is set in a mythical forested
area where a village that is using steel for weapons threatens the region's
pristine nature. But the forest has a defender - a Princess, named San,
who was raised by wolves and who can communicate with animals and spirits.
With her sword flashing, she swings into action against this industrialisation.
Miyazaki, 56, who drew about 80,000 of the film's 144,000 animation
cells himself, began his movie career in the major studio Toei as an animator.
His role as the creative centre of Tokyo's Studio Ghibli began in 1984
with his first animated feature Nausica of the Valley of Wind.
(Dir): Hayao Miyazaki (Scr): Hayao Miyazaki Laenge (Running time):
135 Minutes
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