Princess Mononoke

I love films. I love literature too in equal amounts, but it can’t be denied that books and films are two completely different forms of media. The visual aspect of cinema in many ways makes it a far more appropriate form for tackling the theme of environmentalism and nature. Beasts of the Southern Wild, for instance, absolutely captivated me and helped me understand some rather deep and complex environmental issues, combining the emotional and physical needs of humankind with the equally important Fellow blogger N. Lloyd’s post on the representation of nature in some of Disney’s classic princess films piqued my interest in how animated films deal with the same issues.

Animation is not a sign of simplicity or childishness anymore than a live-action signifies maturity or depth. Studio Ghibli’s 1997 animated feature Princess Mononoke has been one of my all time favourite films since I first watched it way back when I was fourteen. I have always had a deep love of animation, but the majority of the content that I had thus far seen was limited to large scale Western cinema, such as Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks. All produced films that have been culturally influential and often deeply, deeply meaningful. But I had never before experienced a film that tackled difficult themes the way that Princess Mononoke did.

The film garnered a great deal of praise across the world, not just for the beauty and excellence of the film itself, but also because of the themes that it tackled and the dignified way in which it approached them. Modern anxieties surrounding the destruction of the natural environment for the sake of human progress and expansion form the core theme of the film, yet the film refrains from being preachy or wholly one-sided. The stance that the film takes reflects the idea that the conflict between the human world and the natural world can no longer be integrated as one, but the hope remains that perhaps humanity can at least learn to live with and regain respect for nature.

Set in 16th century Japan, the film concerns a boy named Ashitaka who sets out to seek a way to end a curse put upon him by a boar god. He travels westwards to a settlement called Irontown, along the way hearing of the Great Forest Spirit and of a girl who supposedly lives among a wolf clan. The main conflict of the film arises from the desire of several human characters to ‘reclaim’ natural land in order to produce the iron that Irontown is named for, while the spirits of the forest actively defend against and sometimes even attack the encroaching human presence.

If I’m being completely honest, then I should admit that this concept is far from new, and the characters themselves are likable and interesting, most are (with the exception of San, the human girl who lives among the wolves) in no way iconic. Plenty have films, music, and works of literature have tackled the theme of humans vs. nature, and Beasts of the Southern Wild was unique in the way in which it represented its human characters. Instead of a cross-section of ‘typical’ people, the film focused on the lives of an ensemble of people from a close-knit outsider culture whose relationship with nature simultaneously mirrors and yet completely diverges from our own. In Princess Mononoke, it is the representation of nature that is really standout. Humanity as a whole is the outsider here, looking inwards towards a natural world which it no longer fully understands or appreciates.

Nothing suggests that the natural world has diminished in power or importance (most evidently shown with the physically and mystically powerful Great Forest Spirit, whose enormous size combined with the ability to both take and grant life is surely symbolic of concept of nature as a whole), and despite the negative effects that human interference has caused, the climax of the film hints at renewal. Nature is not static, but a living, developing thing; just as the forest in Princess Mononoke slowly begins to regrow after being all but destroyed in the human/nature conflict, nature is perfectly capable of adapting and recreating itself to different environments and situations.

‘Nightwalker’ – the Great Forest Spirit’s appearance changes from day to night and back.

The elements of mysticism and spiritualism that are inherent in the film contribute to the sense of surreal otherness that defines nature in this film. In a modern world in which nature is often sidelined, it is not difficult to understand the film’s characterisation of nature as something essential to human life, and yet something that humanity has become increasingly detached and alienated from. The forest is a strange place, where humans fear to tread, and yet it is also beautiful. It is not so different in that respect from the kind of fairytale forests of Western children’s literature, where the natural world so often is a place of danger/fear and life/peace. To return to N. Lloyd’s article on the representation of the natural world in Snow White, the forest into which the princess if forced to flee is at first terrifying and unnatural, an uncanny mutation of human eyes, faces and hands that are anthropomorphised onto shadowy trees. Yet, this fear changes to happiness when Snow White notices the living creatures of the forest gathered around her.

Kodama/Tree Spirits

In the ancient forests of Princess Mononoke, the creatures that we encounter are not always of the mortal kind. The Tree Spirits (or Kodama) are exactly what their name implies, and their presence in the forest is undisputable. The humans that encounter them are unnerved by them, and yet they see them as clearly as they see the forest itself. They are symbolic of the nature of the very trees from which they originate, rejecting the notion that trees are inherently passive by clearly expressing the active soul that each tree apparently possess. They do not communicate verbally with humanity – they may even lack the ability – but their very presence is enough to convince the characters within the film, and perhaps even the audience as well, that nature is a LIVING entity. The small and quaint nature of the Kodama perhaps reinforces the common trope that nature is at least somewhat defenceless or weak, but they number a great many and their return at the end of the film is representative of the triumph of the spirit of nature, even in its weakest and most unassuming form, over the mistakes that humanity has made in the past.

‘STRANDS’

Jean Sprackland’s Sands

'We are learning, belatedly, about the interdependence of living things'

One of the central themes that I felt was embodied in Beasts of the Southern Wild was the opposing yet simultaneously interlinking concepts of the local and the global. Less fantastical in its presentation, but still just as relevant to the discussion, Jean Sprackland’s book Strands is a record of continuous visitation by the author to a select landscape local to her, the beaches of Ainsdale Sands. In class, discussion was raised in consideration of these ideas of what localisation really was, and whether anything could be truly localised when considering the ideas of the totality of the Earth.

Ainsdale Sands, by David Crocker.

At first, it can easily seem that Strands is far too localised to be of much relevant interest to anyone whose experiences of nature is not defined by a stretch of northern English coastline. Yet, throughout the book Sprackland herself is increasingly amazed at the way in which this relatively small area ( planetarily speaking of course) is so affected by distant ecosystems, by different places and people, and by events, natural or otherwise, that occurred so far away in both time and place.

Sprackland’s meditative thought is often very insightful, and echoes, in my opinion, the kind of thought process that many people go through when giving deeper thought to subjects that before had seen so simple, especially when considering the nature world, which is both so close and yet so distant to our consciousness at all times. Her thoughts often form incredibly precise and straight lines of thinking, a clarity of process that aids in helping the book make even clearer the way in which the local is not local at all, but part of a greater process of the Earth as a whole.

When algal blooms break down far out at sea, organic material is released into the water, and this very fine protein suspension acts as a foaming agent. It is churned up in the breaking waves, coats the air bubbles and makes a stiff froth, like the head of foam in a beer glass.

The strange simile with which the above quotation ends forms the basis of both positive and negative criticism among readers of the novel. While some argue that the inclusion of these anthropological references make Spracklands prose ‘warmer, and more human,’ others argue that nature cannot be the true subject of the book when so much attention is payed to somewhat irrelevant human imagery and biography. Strackland does indeed put much of herself into the book, and the preface makes it very clear that the work was an undertaking of a personal nature, with Strackland deciding to utilise her remaining time nearby Ainsdale Sands, before moving to London.

Curiously, a review from the Guardian disagreed with this stance completely, arguing that Sprackland had ‘withheld herself‘ from the book, and that it lacked emotional immediacy.Whatever the case may be, the question of whether the natural world can be well represented in literature without the presence of a noticeable human voice of representation is a difficult one. The narrative voice in Strands is subjective, omniscient and very human, and the effect that this has on the portrayal of the natural landscape is an immense one, as it is so crucial to the reading of the text.

Green-leaf Worm Eggs (Eulalia viridis), found in Ainsdale.

There were a variety of different responses put forward by the En6018 group to this text. One of the more interesting points made was that although Strands had all the signs of being a text based on realism, there was something almost fantastical about the things that Sprackland seemed to encounter throughout the book, and the relative ease with which she had in finding events and incidents of which to write about. Perhaps some of documentation Strands has been embellished, even if only a little bit, but it is of course almost impossible to really say either way. For those like myself who may at first be sceptical of such an abundance of different finds, it would probably seem a bit more realistic if knew the area or spent more time thinking about the kind of encounters that we have with our local natural environments everyday.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

In class recently, we have begun to discuss Ecological Thought in more depth. What particularly interested me was the ideas about totality, Ursula Heise’s essay ‘From the Blue Planet to Google Earth’, and even James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis. An ecosystem that is simultaneously self-sustaining and yet existing in a state of fragile interdependence on the life that it holds is something that is explored in the 2012 film Beasts of the Southern Wild. The film primarily follows the life of a six year old girl name Hushpuppy, who grows up in a liminal bayou community called the Bathtub, separated almost entirely from the rest of the world by a levee. Yet the film is extremely ecologically minded, open to themes not only of childhood and human relationships, but the very existence of nature itself and the precarious but essentially reliant relationship that exists between humanity and nature.

The premise of the film is that, presumably through Global Warming, the ice caps have begun to melt, releasing into the world the prehistoric creatures frozen within (which are implied to be the long-extinct Aurochs). Meanwhile, the introverted community of the Bathtub are struggling with the aftermath of a large tropical storm, the effects of which cause immediate devastation to both people and nature. But it is the aftermath of the storm that causes the ecosystem to fail, and the completely localised community of the Bathtub to suffer most. The salt from the storm poisons the water, and the food supply with it. All life begins to die, and the residents of the Bathtub are left to either move on and adapt to modern, mainstream, globalized life or to continue live in an environment that may no longer be able to sustain itself. One of the main themes of the film is the question, as Hushpuppy puts it, whether it is possible to ‘break something so bad, that it can’t get put back together’.

Hushpuppy is acutely aware, even before it begins, of the ecological disaster that is about to engulf them. ‘The water’s gunna rise up so high, there ain’t gunna be no Bathtub. Just a whole bunch of water’. In Beasts of the Southern Wild, humanity is represented as just as, if not more, fragile than nature itself. Nature is represented here as capable of feats of great power; not just in the form of the tumultuous storm that signals the beginning of the end of the Bathtub, but also in its ability to renew and return.

One of the most interesting motifs in the film is the recurring use of the large and potentially unstoppable force of the recently re-animated aurochs. The film is spliced throughout with small scenes of the aurochs charging violently through wilderness and habitation equally, and in one particular scene they are shown as eating their own kind. Of course, this is not supposed to accurately represent that herbivorous aurochs of history, whose descendants live among us as the domesticated cow, but to instead give us a glimpse at a time when humanity was not the dominant species on Earth, but merely one of many weaker species living in fear of the world around it. ‘Strong animals,’ Hushpuppy states, ‘know when your hearts are weak, and that makes ’em hungry.’ Here, the aurochs are shown to us as the stronger animal, unaware of the changes that have taken places over the centuries since their supposed disappearance, and they begin to make there way to the now-uncertain and fearful community of the Bathtub.

Perhaps the most important scene in the entire film is one of the last; the climactic confrontation between the powerful and nigh-unstoppable herd of aurochs, and small, six year old Hushpuppy. It is easy to assume that Hushpuppy’s bravery in standing against these large beasts, and their subsequent bowing to her as a symbol of humanity’s dominance over the subservient forces of nature. But I think that this is not the intention of the film. Instead, I propose that it symbolises the equal and opposite forces of humanity and nature. The bowing of aurochs brings the animal closer to Hushpuppy’s level. She acknowledges that they are equal partners in their claim of survival, stating that ‘you’re my friend, kind of,’ creating a relationship, not of animosity, but of respect.

She follows this by acknowledging that regardless of this relationship, her bonds to her fellow humans are stronger, ‘But I gotta take care of mine.’ Unlike the aurochs (and therefore nature itself as represented in the aurochs), who are assumedly self-sufficient, the humans are fragile and needy. Hushpuppy must return to her family, and help them to recover from the ecological mistakes that they have made, in order to once again bring everything back to the way it should be. It may be that she is not even talking solely about her human ties, but instead about her home community, the Bathtub, and the greater ecosystem that makes it. Her desire to return there is a desire to restart the community, and to care for the ecosystem anew. After all, Hushpuppy has already stated her belief that as ‘the whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right [then] if one piece busts, even the smallest piece…the entire universe will get busted.’ The Bathtub, as small and insignificant as it seems, is the whole universe to both the people and creatures that dwell there.

The fixing of the ecological state of the Bathtub is not implied to be the impossible task that Hushpuppy at times assumes. The very presence of the aurochs, an animal that has been broken from the chain of existence completely by its extinction, so ecologically broken that its reappearance should be impossible, has been restored to life by the actions of the very same creatures, the humans, that originally drove it to extinction. Of course, unlike the deliberate actions of hunting and destruction of habitat that lead to the disappearance of the aurochs, it is the accidental actions and second-hand reactions that leads to the melting ice-caps and the re-emergence of the aurochs here. Yet their very presence suggests that it is not possible to ‘break something so bad that it can’t be fixed,’ as Hushpuppy initially believes. Perhaps even in the harshest of adversity, the Earth and nature are able to self-renew. Nothing is permanent, but nothing really stops existing; the world is not graspable only in the human terms of time and space, but in a cycle of rebirth and death that goes on for perhaps infinity.

Clips from Beasts of the Southern Wild, 2012. Dir. Behn Zeitlin, Court 13 Pictures, USA.