I think of that girl from time to time. She is standing next to a white wolf, her mouth is full of scarlet blood, and her eyes show hatred for humans.
——Chris
In 2001, Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" once again broke the box office record of Japanese movies with a box office of 30.8 billion yen, which was 4.6 billion yen higher than the second-placed "Titanic". Since then, no movie has broken this box office record, and to this day, Spirited Away is still the No. 1 box office in Japanese movie history.
However, before the release of "Spirited Away", Hayao Miyazaki's other masterpiece has been the box office champion of Japanese local movies for three years, and that is the epic "Princess Mononoke."
In 1997, "Princess Mononoke" was released. In the same period, the box office opponent was Steven Spielberg's "Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World". Studio Ghibli's target box office was 5-6 billion yen. After its release, with its grand narrative and profound themes, it earned 19.3 billion yen, making it the top-grossing film in Japan in 1997.
It is no secret that Hayao Miyazaki is anti-war. There are several themes in his works that often recur, one of which is the reflection on war. But if you look closely, we will find that Hayao Miyazaki's way of expressing anti-war ideas is not static. In his early works, such as "Castle in the Sky", Hayao Miyazaki's way of expressing anti-war is relatively mild. He uses roses to resist guns. He will use various metaphors and symbolic methods to call for peace and oppose war. for example:
Gives the warmth of killing robots
Match the killing machine with flowers
Behind this is the view that science is value-neutral: it is people who are wrong, not technology.
Even if there are war scenes, they are very restrained. Usually, a few shots are used to show the amazing destructive power of the machine. When it is clicked, Hayao Miyazaki's movies are not bloody.
But in "Princess Mononoke," this is not the case. Hayao Miyazaki directly shows the conflicts between people and the ugliness of war to the audience, and some pictures are not even suitable for children and teenagers to watch. For example, after Ashitaka was cursed, the counterattack in order to prevent the samurai from killing innocent people was very bloody.
Including in the later "Howl's Moving Castle", Howl flew alone in the dense smoke-filled sky, surrounded by bombs, and shells exploded one after another on the ground, like blossoming blood-colored flowers. Even the dialogue is very straightforward:
Hall: Those warships are to attack the town and the people.
Sophie: Is it an enemy or a friend?
Hall: It's the same on either side, these murderers.
These bloody and naked depictions of war are invisible in his early works.
And all of this originated from the war at the end of the last century.
When the Yugoslav War broke out in 1991, the sound of the artillery blast shattered Miyazaki's beautiful hope for peace.
When Miyazaki was creating the autobiographical "Porco Rosso", the Yugoslav war broke out. Hayao Miyazaki added his dislike of war into "Porco Rosso", which made the original comedy "Porco Rosso" a bit heavy. The male protagonist in the film did not want to be a fascist and left the army and country where he had served for many years. A free bounty hunter. In the film, Hayao Miyazaki expressed his condemnation of fascism and dissatisfaction with the war through Porco Rosso: "If I want to be a fascist, I would rather be a pig." After creating "Porco Rosso", Miyazaki was exhausted. Believing that everything he had to do in his life has been completed, he announced his retirement.
However, with the passage of time, the Yugoslavian war did not stop, on the contrary, it became more intense. In the 1992-1995 War in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 278,000 of the population of more than 4.3 million people in Bosnia and Herzegovina died and more than 2 million became refugees; more than 85% of the country’s economic facilities were destroyed, and the direct economic loss was more than 45 billion U.S. dollars . During this period, the appalling "Srebrenica" genocide occurred:
From July 11 to 22, 1995, Bosnia-Herzegovina Serb military police and military police sent by the Yugoslav Federation raided and captured Srebrenica. In the following 11 days, these extinct military police not only raped Many Bosnian women also massacred more than 8,000 Muslim men in the area.
During the Yugoslav War, Hayao Miyazaki was tortured and began to reflect on his previous expressions.
From the end of World War II to the outbreak of the Yugoslav War, only 46 years have passed.
From the Nanjing Massacre to the Srebrenica Massacre, only 58 years have passed.
Human beings are forgetful. Human beings have not learned any lessons from their own works, let alone reflection.
It is meaningless to use roses to fight guns and flowers to call for peace.
"It feels like children were born in this world but are not blessed. How can we behave like nothing in front of them?"
Then, when Hayao Miyazaki appeared in the public eye again, he brought "Princess Mononoke".
This is a breakthrough of Hayao Miyazaki's anti-war thinking. It is still an expression of anti-war, but it has changed from flowers to blood. The film portrays all conflicts directly and without disguise. In particular, the story of the Black Hat lord leading the Stone Rocket attacking the samurai is enough to reflect the cruelty of the war.
Of course, for these changes, Miyazaki once felt that "this is not something that children should see", but in the end he still insisted on his own ideas. Because he realized, "No, this is what children must see! Because adults can't understand it, children can."
At the same time, what has become more mature is Miyazaki's reflection on the relationship between man and nature.
In his famous work "Nausicaa", Hayao Miyazaki proposed two ways of dealing with nature. One is Kushana's conquest by force, an attempt to make nature surrender to mankind through technological advancement. The other is the peaceful coexistence of Nausicaa, to understand nature and accept nature's arrangements. Kushana’s approach is certainly undesirable, but Nausicaa’s environmental protection philosophy also has certain flaws. Her philosophy embodies the idea of “Nature-based”, that is, when conflicts occur, people must give way to nature.
However, people have to absorb resources while they are alive. As more and more people are living, the demand for resources is also increasing. Humans and other species will eventually conflict due to their territories. Such conflicts are unavoidable. It is impossible to say that human development is sacrificed for environmental protection. The so-called protection of nature and protection of the earth is actually a false proposition. The earth has a life span of several billions. Meteorite impacts, earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions have experienced events far beyond human imagination. The earth does not need to be protected, it is the fragile human beings that need to be protected.
Therefore, in "Princess Mononoke", Hayao Miyazaki did not make too much criticism of the human desire for survival. I don’t know if you have noticed this detail. The villagers of Dadala can’t cultivate and cannot be self-sufficient. They can only make iron through mining, and then sell the iron tools in exchange for the rice they depend on. Iron ore is rice to them. .
In the scene where Mona appeared, Lord Black Hat was leading the crowd to transport supplies on a very difficult road. However, there is another road leading to Dadala, and it is more convenient and safer, and that is the road that Ashidaka took to Jialiuhui Village. But the villagers did not dare to leave because it was the territory of the mountain god.
In other words, if it weren't because the iron sand was running out, the villagers wouldn't dare to mine in the land of the gods. Miyazaki showed more understanding and sympathy for conflicts between humans and gods caused by survival issues.
So what did Hayao Miyazaki criticize in "Princess Mononoke"?
Human greed.
In "The Birth of Mononoke Hime", Hayao Miyazaki described the black hat as: "This is a modern man, the only demon." The reason is simple: she represents human greed.
Different from attacking the gods of Nagge, the black hat killed the mountain beast gods entirely because of greed. She wanted to turn the forest into the property of Dadala.
There is a fundamental difference between conflicts caused by survival and conflicts caused by greed. The former happens because it cannot be avoided, it is a tragedy, and the latter can be avoided but it happens, it is a ugly scene.
Black Hat had two chances to look back. The first was when the defeated wild boar herd led by Subject B returned to the forest. At this time, the villagers of Dadala had already won the war. Mona and Subject B were already unable to stop the villagers from digging in the mountains. There was no need for Black Hat to kill the gods in order to make an agreement with the monk. The second chance was when Ashitaka told her that when the samurai attacked Dadala City, she did not choose to go back, but went to the holy pond without hesitation.
When the black hat blasted off the head of the mountain beast god in spite of persuasion, the god was angry. The mountain beast god absorbed all the life he could touch while searching for his head, and the elf fell. , The trees withered, the forest died. If it weren't for Ashitaka and Sang to return their heads in time after risking their lives, Daddala would become a dead place. And these scenes, it seems not far from us, right?
In 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear leak broke out in Ukraine. The accident resulted in the death of 31 firefighters and 270,000 people suffered from cancer, of which 93,000 died. Chernobyl became a "ghost city".
On April 20, 2010, a crude oil spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in the United States. The spill lasted for 87 days and killed 11 people. The environmental pollution caused will take decades to assess.
Can man and nature live in harmony?
In "Nausicaa", the king insect finally resurrected Nausicaa. The contradiction between man and nature is not insoluble, and a certain delicate balance can be achieved between man and nature.
But in "Princess Mononoke" 13 years later, Hayao Miyazaki did not directly give the answer. At the end of the film, the mountain beast god returned the life he had taken to the forest, and the forest was restored to its vitality, and Ashida Ka’s curse also disappeared. He decided to stay in Dadara and protect the forest with Sang. It seemed like a happy ending, but the monk Liao left a meaningful sentence: “Really, it’s true. A fool can’t win. of."
This line seems to be marginal and incomprehensible, but in "The Birth of Mononoke Hime", the staff asked the voice actors to express the feeling "Although I lost to a fool this time, I won't lose next time" . In other words, the death of the mountain beast god is just the beginning, and human beings will not reflect on their greed for this, and will not stop the pace of plundering resources.
The mountain beast god who defended the forest is gone, replaced by Ashitaka and Sang. This also implies that the task of protecting nature ultimately depends on human beings. If you do not change your greedy and selfish heart, everything that happened today will repeat itself, and an infinite cycle of human ingestion of resources-destruction of nature-and nature's punishment of mankind will be formed. Therefore, Miyazaki is more pessimistic about the contradiction between man and nature.
However, it is fortunate that even though Miyazaki feels that the contradiction between man and nature is likely to be an inevitable natural tragedy, he has not promoted a value of "breaking the pot" or "playing in time".
A few months before the release, he suddenly made two requests with Suzuki:
- Modify the ending of Black Hat.
- Extend the movie by 15 minutes.
According to Suzuki's statement in "The Birth of Mononoke Hime", Hayao Miyazaki revised the ending of the death of Black Hat and added footage of recovering Black Hat's arm and assisting Daddara.
However, I don’t know if it’s the subtitles’ translation wrong, or Suzuki’s understanding. Combined with the background drafts in the documentary, Miyazaki should have added the shots of Ashitaka and Sang regaining the head of the mountain beast, rather than looking for the black The broken arm of the cap. (The picture below has a 1171 number sub-camera, it is the headless mountain beast god looking for his head)
That is to say, Hayao Miyazaki suddenly changed his mind a few months before the release, resurrected the black hat that was supposed to be dead, and only gave her the punishment of breaking her hand; added the scene of Ashitaka and Sang regaining the head of the mountain beast god. ; Added the dialogue between Ashitaka and Sang at the end of the movie. These changes directly lead to a 15-minute extension of the movie.
These changes actually have only one purpose, and that is to emphasize the theme of the movie:
Live on
In the face of predicament, and even desperation, many people hope that a miracle will happen. The difference is that some people sit paralyzed in the corner, drunk, and wait for the miracle from heaven; some people carry their bags, ride the wind and waves, meet the challenges of life, and work hard to create miracles by themselves.
There is no doubt that Hayao Miyazaki wants us to be the latter kind of people. He hopes that we live like Ashitaka. Even if we are cursed, we still do not give up the hope of life, and finally lifted the curse in the distant city of Dadara. Down.
Yes, this is what Miyazaki wants to express: No matter what the outcome of man and nature, never give up hope, but live strong:
There is hope if you live;
Only if you survive, it is possible to find a way;
Only by living, miracles are possible.
After completing the epic animation of "Princess Mononoke", due to high-intensity work, Hayao Miyazaki suffered a severe illness. What made him sad was the death of his friend and right-hand assistant Kondo Yoshifumi. Hayao Miyazaki announced his retirement for the third time.
In 1999, Takahata's "My Neighbor Yamada-kun" suffered a fiasco at the box office and only earned 1.5 billion yen.
In 2001, Hayao Miyazaki returned with "Spirited Away" for the third time, breaking the box office record of Japanese movies again, winning a high box office of 30.8 billion yen.
In 2003, Spirited Away won the Best Animated Feature Film at the 75th Academy Awards.
[Note 1]: The "Nausicaa" mentioned in this article is Hayao Miyazaki's movie rather than a comic. Compared with the movie, the content of the comic is more complex, profound, and complete.
[Note 2]: The "Princess Mononoke Birth Story" mentioned in this article is a "Princess Mononoke" documentary, which records the creative process of the entire movie, which lasts about four hours. Previously, there was a 4-hour unabridged version of "Princess Mononoke" that was circulated on the Internet, which actually refers to this documentary.
[Note 3]: The music at the beginning of this article, "Ashita Kazuki", is the soundtrack made by Joe Hisaishi for "Princess Mononoke". It is magnificent and full of ancient mythology. It is very nice. The success of the soundtrack and theme song of "Princess Mononoke" marks that Hisaishi has become a world-class film soundtrack master.
Welcome to pay attention to my official account: light and shadow gashapon machine:
View more about Princess Mononoke reviews
