Princess Mononoke and Our Relationship with Nature Kieran enright When I first stumbled upon Studio Ghibli I was immediately taken aback by the style and tone of its tales. Unlike its Western counterparts, these epics deal with conflicts of ideals, and question the resilience of the human condition. Hayao Miyazaki, the powerhouse behind the studio, intersects his stories with a sense of urgent realism and modernity, the most poignant of which, in my opinion, is Princess Mononoke. Released in 1997, the film places itself in a time of turbulent transition. Existing between thresholds: the natural world and the onslaught of mechanization, the film directly questions man’s impact on the natural world. In this way, Princess Mononoke’s allegorical exploration is timeless. The question of man’s impact on nature, now more than ever, is at the forefront of the political and social debate. The film centers around a war over limited resources, not unlike our current environmental situation. The humans, having mobilized iron in the form of weapons, ignite this conflict by shooting and killing the mountain’s Boar God. Afflicted with the “curse” of the humans, the iron, the God becomes enraged in a demonic form and violently attacks nearby villages. Ashitaka, one of our protagonists, defeats this evil, but he is in turn afflicted with the same curse, and doomed to
death himself. This curse, caused by the iron, a human invention, becomes a representation of mechanization, which is feared to lead to the demise of the natural. On the advice of the village elder, Oracle, Ashitaka heads West in search of the Forest Spirit, who is said to possess a cure. The film establishes itself in a ecosystem where nature and man interact violently, but also an ecosystem of choices and motivations. Throughout the film we meet several main characters who contribute to this complexity. San, or Princess Mononoke, acts as the human representation of nature. Lady Eboshi, the leader of Irontown, an industrialized settlement that has waged war on the forest surrounding it, initially appears as the film’s antagonist. In her quest to continue building for the benefit of her people, she seeks to totally destroy the Forest Spirit (i.e. nature). However, her character is not completely abhorrent. She is portrayed as a kind leader, taking pity on those stricken with Leprosy, and even offering a better life to the women of the town’s brothel. In this way Lady Eboshi, who appears as the foil to nature, is humanized. Thus, Princess Mononoke is not simply a conflict of good and evil. Our sympathies are continuously drawn back and forth. The inhabitants of Iron-
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