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Princess
Mononoke
viewed November 6, 1999 at Embarcadero Center Cinema
For full information about this
film, click
here
Words couldn't begin to describe
the visual wonders of this epic. I can only list
the ones that come off the top of my head:
- The Boar Demon, and its writing worm skin
- The beautiful creation of depth, made especially
memorable for me when Ashitaki in the foreground
decapitates a charging horseman in the background with
an arrow shot from his superstrong arm.
- The majestic sight of Son, first sucking and
spitting out the poisoned blood of her wounded wolf
mother, then in her lone assault on the ironworks.
- The
Forest People (this is a terrible thought, but wouldn't
they make a great screensaver?)
- The
pre-dawn arrival of the Forest Spirit
- The
almost one-hour climactic battle, with at least a dozen
images that are worthy of mentioning if they weren't
spoilers.
As of now I
have no substantial criticism of the film or of Disney's
translation of it (there are plenty of detractors to be
found for the latter). I do have a gripe to
express for the anime geeks who wouldn't stop jabbering
for the enitre 20 minutes that I sat waiting for the
film to start. I think one was boasting about his
experience as an editor for the upcoming Pokemon movie,
and that is nothing I'd want to brag volubly about in
public. He and a guy sitting in front of him were
practically abusing a poor timid lady crouched next to
him who, in a near fetal position, covered her ears in
anguish. Another anime conversation was brewing
behind me -- from this direction-based data I gathered
that at least 50% of the audience were anime fans.
A lot of them have a distinguishable wall-eyed look to
them, reflecting the hours they spend watching anime
videos, and they talk in squirrelly techie voices, with
the emphatic tones of know-it-all teenagers.
I'm being
really harsh on them (and I shouldn't even use the
collective, since that's assuming that they're all the
same), but it's only because those two guys had such
disregard for the poor lady, not to mention everyone
else within earshot of their conversation / bragfest.
The one in front did notice, after he ran out of breath,
that his girlfriend was slouched in her seat, and he
spent the next couple of minutes with a sheepish look on
his face while caressing her apologetically.
They and
everyone else was rather reverently quiet for the actual
screening -- but bursts of laughter would erupt when
someone dubbed phrase sounded awkward. Anime fans
or not, the audience noise annoyed me. I think
this was a rare occurrence when I actually wished I was
alone in the theater. There was something almost
sacred about what I was seeing up on the screen, that I
wanted all to myself, untainted by the presence of
others and their coarse responses to what they perceived
to be shoddy campy translation on the part of
Disney. This was one illusion of authenticity that
I would have preferred to keep.
Read
Roger Ebert's similarly unabashed praise of this film.
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