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It's amazing how much people complain about politics in movies when one of the best techniques for good characters and conflicts is to make each of your characters an avatar for a particular ideology which they then act out the consequences of.
This scene is a good example of presenting ideological debate: Jigo is a nihilistic opportunist, he sees the world as already lost and bad, so do what you can to survive and get ahead for yourself. Ashitaka is, as the protagonist of course, kind of a living dialectic. He must synthesize the ideas of Eboshi, Jigo (and the greater empire), and San (and the greater Natural world) together into something coherent, something he (and the audience) can act on.
And I think Ashitaka does incorporate these ideas. He isn't lost to selfishness or despair, but does come to see the conflict as a kind of overarching curse upon the minds of all involved. In carrying the physical manifestation of the curse of war, he is able to show himself as a living consequence of the price war takes upon life and the land, and uses the violence empowered by the curse as a tool to de-escalate and end conflict.
I think the reason why people complain about politics is:
- They want to find an easy scapegoat. They didn’t like the movie, and it’s easy to blame one aspect when the actual reason is far more complicated. It’s like how people think Jar Jar Binks ruined Episode 1 when he was just one small part of the movie.
- Politics can often be badly implemented in movies. Not all politics are black and white where there are obvious good and bad sides. The characters of Princess Mononoke, while it’s clearly on the environmentalist side, shares multiple perspectives on the conflict.
- It’s easier to notice something when it’s bad, so people tend to notice the politics when it’s bad.
People who complain about politics in media are generally too dumb to understand media. Very often they don't like something for some reason but go on to justify it with whatever stupid buzzword is popular in their circle.
Hey I love this movie and I really dug your analysis!
I never really "got" this movie, and I like most Ghibli. Maybe I'll watch it again with this in mind.
I think this is the sort of film that benefits from a rewatch with time.
For example, when I was younger, it was easy to watch this and be like "Lady Eboshi and Iron Town bad, forest spirits and nature good." But as an adult, with more context to watch it through, the nuance changes a lot.
Eboshi, for example, is an antagonist but not a villain. Taking a step back to look with a wider view, she is a woman who rebelled against the patriarchal standards of the surrounding empire to establish her own egalitarian society where women who were once exploited as prostitutes and servants are offered respect and positions of authority alongside men. She cares for the sick and dying, who are unable to care for themselves. And her motivations throughout the film are strictly about protecting her village and ensuring the best possible quality of life for her people, giving them a home when no one else will. It's just that it comes at the cost of the surrounding environment, which she does not properly understand the consequences of.
And on the flip side, we initially sympathize with the wolves and other nature spirits who are, in turn, protecting their home from the danger posed by Iron Town, but the film also depicts nature as callous and unfeeling. The wolves try to murder Ashitaka when he is weak and helpless because it is in their nature to do so. The boars refuse to listen to the humans who are trying to help because they are outsiders. We see that the forest spirit is as much a god of death as it is of life. And though Iron Town is destroying the surrounding environment, so too are the forest spirits trying to destroy Iron Town, which only escalates the conflict further.
It's a good depiction of a conflict wherein no side is truly good or evil. Every character has sympathetic motivations, which is what makes it compelling.
I guess I was a little underwhelmed by the plot. Compare it to Nausicaa, which has a similar situation in which the Tolmekians initially seem "evil" but eventually it seems they just want to bring back humanity. The climax of the film is pretty obvious in Nausicaa, and as I remember Mononoke had it's own "moment of finding balance", but it was a little less convincing. So yeah, maybe I'll get more out of it this time.
Beautiful analysis!