Film/book analysis #4

Critique/Princess Mononoke

The scope of this film is enormous. It’s an epic tackling just about as many social concerns as you can count. While the film has a very clear environmentalist message, it permeates much deeper than that without being, necessarily anti-industrialism. It’s not quite an anti-war film but it would be dismissive to just call it “pro-peace”. In his introduction to the book, “The Art of Princess Mononoke”, Miyazaki draws our attention not just toward the awesome majesty of nature, but also toward the social context in which the film takes place. He consciously avoids the popular period-drama tropes of rice farmers and samurai where everyone knew their place, instead setting the film during a period of social upheaval, with the hero Ashitaka representing one of the nation’s forgotten aboriginal people and has "Irontown" set up as a proto-Marxist worker’s collective rising up to challenge the power of the samurai lords.

Environmentalism has been around even in the backgrounds of most, if not all of Miyazaki’s work. Clearly in Nausicaä and Castle in the Sky, but even less explicit works like My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service have a simple and genuine love for the natural world. Each of the film’s varying factions are shown with detail and Miyazaki’s typical humanism. It’s not even just as simple as man vs. forest. Even the creatures of nature are divided, with the apes getting in the way of the wolves’ progress, and the boar clan trying to act out their own agenda. The humans, meanwhile, are just as divided as the animals, with samurai, iron workers, and a group of hunters all fighting for control of both the forest and the future of mankind. So not only is Mononoke addressing environmentalism or war or capitalism but it examines its messages intersectionally. The film is a rigid condemnation of partisanship and closes with bittersweet compromise -- Miyazaki shows us that although humans and nature should respect each other, there exist differences that neither side will ever be able to overcome. Humans and nature may not always agree, but there is no reason to hinder goodwill between them.

Miyazaki tends towards progressive female characters, sure, but we don't want to dismiss or reduce this fact here, and in turn, ignore the bigger picture. Eboshi is the ultimate adversary for this story: someone who wears a mask of benevolence in order to manipulate the masses to her own desires -- a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It’s kind of amazing that she still ends up feeling just as sympathetic and human as the other characters by the film’s end. Eboshi's character is a means for Miyazaki to actually subvert his own progressiveness, baiting the audience and then giving us something that’s even more difficult to wrestle with. The gender of this character in relation to their actions is inherently political. This complexity and grayness is how, in a way, Eboshi is using these more modern notions to exploit women and the underclass for her own means, rather than benefit them. It’s just one example of many regarding the layers and layers of pathos and detail that Miyazaki brings to each of the film’s factions.

Yes, “Princess Mononoke” is deeply concerned with nature, but it is also a paean to working men and women. Its heroes are oppressed minorities, lepers, prostitutes, ox drivers and orphans. The result is a film whose most defining declaration is: “Life is suffering. It is hard. The world is cursed. But still, you find reasons to keep living.”

Family/Danny the Champion of the World

This is a story of courage, play, wisdom, and the deep connection that can exist between a parent and a child. After the death of his mother as an infant, Danny is left to live with his father and together, they forge a bond so close that no one can come between them! This is quite simply, a sweet book. They live in a colourful wooden caravan under a large apple tree, serving petrol and fixing cars together. At night his dad tells him fabulous stories. When Danny starts school at seven, his dad walks him there and back. Danny has the best life, and he loves his dad more than anything.

Danny's father is a fantastic figure, and when Danny calls him the best father in the world, you kind of find yourself nodding along in agreement. When Danny discovers his secret hobby, pheasant poaching, he teaches Danny the best ways to steal birds off the large estate of the wealthy and pompous owner. I could be writing about Critique just as easily because Danny the Champion of the World is a win for the working class. Danny loves life and sees the riches in it rather than his poverty stricken surroundings. The objective reality is that they live in a caravan and just scrape by with the barest of essentials, yet through the eyes of Danny, life is splendid. Having money isn't the key to happiness, a notion frequently present in Dahl’s work. Here, the key to happiness is the quality time spent with our loved ones. His father doesn’t simply tell Danny what to do but rather takes the time to teach him how to do it (Danny is a great help in the garage, at only nine years old!). Not only that, but Danny’s father does the work alongside him -- they’re equals. In fact, it’s Danny himself who comes up with the most clever poaching plan, ever conceived!

Danny's inventiveness in the poaching scheme earns well-deserved praise from his dad and others, and it’s his father who dubs him “the champion of the world” -- which not only humbles Danny but leaves him reaffirmed in the greatness of his one remaining parent. The two are a close family unit who share everything with each other. The tenderness of this novel comes from its’ simplicity. They have each other, and love, and great stories and fantastic adventures. And that’s kind of it.

Danny is a nine year old mechanic who has a fabulous story-teller of a father. At times his father may seem irresponsible and a little wild but still holds all the qualities you want in a great father. Not only does he provide and protect, he is attentive and involved, and he’s also a friend. Danny is enamoured at the possibility that his father and him have this activity they can share together and like a good parent, Danny is cautioned against the danger (and illegality) of poaching. Proudly spelled out on the back of the book, Dahl says:

A MESSAGE
to Children Who Have Read This Book

When you grow up
and have children of your own
do please remember something important

a stodgy parent is no fun at all

What a child wants
and deserves
is a parent who is

SPARKY