Princess Mononoke is an epic film. It's obvious that Miyazaki spent a long time thinking about the small details that compose it. According to Wikipedia, he spent 16 years developing the story and characters.
I didn't know that Princess Mononoke used CGI before this class. I thought that it was all animated traditionally. Despite that, the uses of CGI are really clever and well-executed.
The depth, animation, and personality of each of the characters is very engrossing. I like the interactions between the non-human characters.
The reason for the death of the deer god came up in class. Different theories were advanced. For the record, I think the deer god died because it had not completely re-absorbed its head before the sun came up. My evidence for this is that a flash of light went through the night walker as it absorbed its head, but the light did not fill its entire body.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I'm interested by your theory about the death of the deer god. To tell you the truth, this was probably my fifth or sixth viewing of Mononoke, and it was only now that I realized that the deer god does, in fact, die. Before I always thought that Ashitaka successfully saved the deer god's life (might have been an issue with the English translation in the dubbed version.) While the actual biological causes of the deer god's death are debatable, I think it's signifigance to the story is largely that it contributes to themes about the importance of accepting one's own death.
ReplyDeleteI was in the same boat as Joel on this one. I always thought that the deer god survived, as evidenced by the forest returning to its healthy state. Now I'm going to have to watch it again, keeping both your ideas in mind.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments. I'd only seen the movie once before this class, and I thought the same as you guys. The assumption going in to the class discussion in the group I was in was that it had died. No one seemed to question that assumption - doesn't make it true, but it was the foundation of what I wrote here.
ReplyDelete