The day has been dragging on; I feel my body protest for the lack of sleep and nutrition. Work was awful, having me run around all over campus multiple times. I’m looking forward to watch a film that has been recommended and praised multiple times. I buy my snacks; get comfortable…and then the people watching the film get to hear my repertoire of snores.
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| Watching this at 2am was pretty epic. |
That’s just outright embarrassing…
My body is pretty much energized for the rest of the night so I reluctantly set up my computer on my bed, grab a bottle of water, a pack of double-stuffed Oreos and my headphones and begin to stream Princess Mononoke at 1am.
130 minutes later I have a smile on my face and my eyes are heavy with sleep. I fall asleep thinking of Mononoke, the Nature God with its crazy head hybrid and Lady Eboshi.
While watching the movie…the second…conscious time, I couldn’t help but thinking…who is the antagonist in the movie? Is it Lady Eboshi? With her Iron Town elimination the natural and replacing it with technology? Is it the beheaded spirit of nature? Destroying everything around it and withering all life? All the characters seemed to have their own reasoning, their own thoughts behind everything they did. There are two sides to each character.
The one character I want to focus on the most is lady Eboshi. She seems to be an antagonist in the film, nevertheless you see her town and the way she treats her people and she doesn’t seem like an antagonist, but a main character. She’s destroying nature, killing animals and ultimately hoping to kill the spirit of the forest. But then you see her treating the lepers, taking care of them and showing them compassion when everyone else would reject them. She also gives women their place in society, allowing them to work and be valuable members of the community. She wants to murder Sai and then kill the spirit of the forest. But she also wants her people to prosper.
If Eboshi isn’t the antagonist…then who is? If it’s Eboshi then she definitely doesn’t fit the normal paradigms of an enemy.
One thing I know is that this movie raises awareness to nature, to our motives and the curses we all have inside of us.
But that’s enough rambling for today, I’m hungry.
Great plot...memorable characters and an AMAZING soundtrack.
“What have I become, my sweetest friend?” –Hurt, Johnny Cash
-Xavi
