MONONOKE-DOKEY

What my mother used to tell me was right. It’s fun to talk about movies with people if you’ve travelled back in time from the year 2004, and have already seen everything.

That’s my new hobby: Hanging around the NYU Student Life building, chatting about movies with undergraduate Cinema Studies students. It’s a CS club, open to NYU undergraduates and alumni. I’m actually both—but of course, I don’t tell anyone that. I wonder if this club still exists.

Anyway, I get to chit-chat, and sound like a real expert, since I’m already familiar with every popular movie that came out in ’99. Just the other day, I went to see "Three Kings" on its opening night with a fellow student, and accurately predicted every upcoming scene. I claimed to have broken the "David O. Russell Code," and scoffed that he was "so desperate to be unconventional that he cannot help being wholly conventional." Then I said, "Kevin Spacey will take Oscar next year for ‘American Beauty.’ Unfortunately, he will choose as his follow-up vehicle the role of a scarred elementary school teacher in a mawkish Mimi Leder drama about doing good deeds."

My classmate looked at me incredulously. "Kevin Spacey in a role that conventional?" she said. "Riiiiiiiight. That’s as unbelievable as what you claim the next ‘Star Wars’ movie will be called. ‘Attack of the Clones?’ That’s dumb."

Actually, there was one heavily-hyped film that I didn’t see in theaters in 1999. I never saw it on home video or television, either. "Princess Mononoke," a Japanese cartoon feature. It got strong word-of-mouth from various critics, and helped fuel the popularity of ‘Japanimation,’ which is still going strong in 2004.

Here in 1999, the movie has recently opened. Since I already knew the outcome of most of yesterday’s football games, I decided to take a trek down to the local cineplex, and see "Princess Mononoke" on the big screen, where it supposedly deserves to be seen. So what did I think of it?
I liked it—no, loved it, until the end. Here’s my gripe:

You’ve got the Empress of Iron City, who wants to destroy all the spirits of the forest, so she can ravage the land. You’ve also got this monk, who wants the cut off the Spirit of the Forest’s head, and take it back to the Emperor of Japan, since it’s supposed to contain the secret of eternal life, or something.

And they succeed, for the most part. While the fate of the Spirit of the Forest is unclear, these two villains certainly manage to kill many wise, ancient, and powerful gods, such as Mononoke’s mother, Morrow, as well as the leader of the Boars. Now, I’m not claiming that the animal gods are cute, harmless forest creatures who don’t deserve at least part of their comeuppance. They’ve killed many humans who dared to chop down the trees of the sacred forests. The animal gods have blood on their hands (and fangs and claws), too.

And yet, the animal gods are the only characters to get their comeuppance. As for the Iron City empress and the scheming monk, the former loses an arm, but lives to wreak havoc another day (I’m not convinced that her final line, "We will rebuild Iron City. Only this time, it’ll be a better Iron City," promises no mischief.) Meanwhile, nothing—and I mean, nothing!—happens to the runty-headed, sandal-footed monk. What the f*ck?! He helped plot the death of the benevolent boar god! He murdered dozens of Iron City’s men as part of the strategem! And he goes out under the shade of an umbrella, without as much as a punch to the face?

On the plus side, the animation is very cool. Also, the side effect of Ashitaka’s curse on his simple bow and arrow (Cartoon men being decapitated! What did the ratings board think of this movie?!) was an awesome idea. I was wondering if Ashitaka was going to get some kind of superpower, and he certainly does.

Finally, the way he and Princess Mononoke first meet, as she’s sucking the blood out of her lupine mother’s wound, was very cute and kinda sexy. As my mother also used to tell me, if you fall in love with a girl as she’s sucking the blood out the side of a giant wolf, marry her immediately, because things will only get better.