Princess Mononoke

This is probably my favorite movie out of all the other movies that were created by Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli Studios. This movie had everything, action, suspense, romance, and even his trademark concern for nature. The film is about a boy that had been living peacefully in his village when a demon boar attacks. In order to save his village, the boy becomes infected with what drove the boar to become a demon (pollution). He is told to leave his village, and he begins his journey. He meets a family of wolves and a human girl (Princess Mononoke) that lives with them, but they are hostile towards the boy. He also discovers that there is an iron mining village that is polluting the environment, but befriends the people that live there. He must then choose who to side with, the iron town or Princess Mononoke, industrialization or the environment. The main reason why I liked this movie so much was because, it felt like Miyazaki wanted to really just tell people that we should be concerned about the environment instead of just hiding it in the background of most of his other movies. He basically comes out and says that the environment is dying due to our pollution and irresponsibility.

The fight between industrialization and the environment is very much real, both in the film and in the real world. Miyazaki just shows us how he sees how industrialization and the environment are interacting with each other in this film. He seems to believe that the environment will strike back if industrialization goes too far and pollutes too much. We can see the results of green house gases and global warming today. Miyazaki shows that humans can not abuse the environment as much as they want without consequences and that humans must respect the environment if they plan to take things from it.

Once again I was amazed at the detail of the animation and the wonderful music made specifically for this film. Then there are things that surprised me when I first say the movie, so much violence and gore from Miyazaki. The film has a lot of violence and gore. For example, the boy accidentally shoots off a samurai's arms with an arrow. I thought that was pretty entertaining, but I believe many people were like me and suspected a more tame movie. I feel bad for those parents that brought their children to watch this movie and finding out that it was nothing like Totoro. It was unexpected, but I think the violence and gore was a nice change by Miyazaki. Any fan of Miyazaki should really watch this film if they haven't already done so.

Director Blog 1: My Neighbor Totoro

I have watched this movie multiple times over the years, but it never gets old. I enjoy how innocent the movie is. Theres a big giant fluffy bear/squirrel thing that has magical powers as one of the main characters, what more would someone want? He even comes with a smile that takes up 2/3 of his face(Freaky the first time I saw it)! Then there was the cat that was also a bus, I thought that was very creative and original. The film was trying to show the importance of nature while also showing how powerful the imagination of a child can be. The film switched back and forth between reality and fantasy, mixing them together slowly until the end where people could no longer tell them apart. My favorite scene would probably have to be when the kids and Totoro were waiting together for a bus and Totoro kept jumping in order hear more rain drops hit the umbrella. It reminded me of when a child figures out that one thing causes another and thinks that it is interesting, so the child keeps doing it. But the one thing that Miyazaki does not want the people that watch his movies to forget is the importance of nature, that is why it is present in almost all of his films. Such as in this film where Totoro and the children planted seeds and made them grow spontaneously into gigantic trees.

One of the main reasons why I liked this movie was how well the music and video worked with each other. Both the animation and the music must have taken a lot of effort. The music just fit into the movie so well, and it wasn't like anything I had heard before when I first saw the film. This film was way ahead of it's time, I don't remember seeing any other animated films with fully original music and an entire orchestra to back it up. The music is very soothing to listen to and I liked how much effort was put into it. (I also already wrote a blog about this film in Art of Film 1 (Tonari no Totoro, in 2007), so I would just be repeating myself if I wrote more.)