Princess Mononoke's sense of scale comes from the protagonist's vision, who "witnesses things that should be invisible. Nostalgic Anime Retrospective No. 40

Starting Wednesday, March 21, 2018, Hayao Miyazaki's latest film, "Rags of a Caterpillar," will be screened at the Mitaka no Mori Ghibli Museum. The project for "Caterpillar's Rags" is old, having been submitted at the same time as "Princess Mononoke," which was released in 1997. So let us take this opportunity to look back at the film "Princess Mononoke.
The main character, Ashitaka, receives a cursed birthmark on his right hand while trying to protect his small village from the "Tatarigami" god. Ashitaka is banished from the village, where he meets a mysterious monk named Jiko-bo, a human daughter named San (Princess Mononoke), and the Deer God, the forest god who controls life and death.
The village priestess, Hii, is a woman with a gift of wisdom, and she is a woman with a gift of love. These are the words of the village priestess, Hii-sama, to Ashitaka as they part ways. True to Hii-sama's words, "Princess Mononoke" unfolds as Ashitaka encounters people and things one after another.

Eboshi-gozen's cloak and Ashitaka's hair flutter simultaneously in different scenes.

However, there are several scenes that Ashitaka seems to have witnessed but actually did not see.
Example #1
Ashitaka arrives at the taraba and is invited to a drinking party, where he learns of the existence of the "Nago no Mamoru," the Lord of the Mountain. In this scene, the following scene is inserted.
(1) The Nago no Mamoru attacks the tara masters who have cut down the mountain's trees.
(2) People shooting flaming arrows.
(3) Nago's guard shakes off the arrows.
(4) The Nago guard leads a pack of wild boars into the people's camp.
(At this point, the scene returns to the drinking table, but the image scene begins again with the man's line, "Then Lady Eboshi showed up with her army of stone fire arrows.)
(5) Eboshi Gozen, leading a group of men with guns in their hands, heroically marches forward.
(6) Men shooting stone fire arrows.
(7)Men burning the forest with weapons like flamethrowers.
(8) Nago no Mamoru runs away screaming through the burning forest.
(9) Eboshi Gozen and the men looking down on the forest as it burns in flames.
The image scene ends here and overlaps to a close-up of Ashitaka with a somber look on his face. Note that in cut (9), Eboshi-gozen's cloak is fluttering in the wind. In the following close-up of Ashitaka, Ashitaka's hair is also fluttering even though there is no wind. The overlap of the wind's fluttering and the hair's fluttering creates an organic connection between the image scenes (1) through (9) and Ashitaka.
Ashitaka holds his right hand, cursed by the god Tarigami, and says, "I was thinking about that boar. I was thinking of that boar, and how deep the resentment must be. He realizes that Nago no Mamoru is the true identity of the tatarigami, and that it is Eboshi Gozen, the ruler of the tara field, who has inflicted pain on Nago no Mamoru.
However, the above image scene is too detailed for Ashitaka to have imagined the explanation of the villagers. Nevertheless, the scene is presented as if it were Ashitaka's recollection. In "Princess Mononoke," Ashitaka sees things here and there that he is not supposed to see.
Let me give you a further example.

Why is Ashitaka able to see things that are supposed to be invisible?

Concrete example #2
Ashitaka is at the ironworks at night, and the women of the village are holding him back when he makes up his mind to leave for home. Thank you," Ashitaka says, "but I must see you. Ashitaka tells the women, "Thank you, but there is someone I must see. Immediately afterwards, a shot of San charging toward the center of the screen on a mountain dog is shown in an insert. Ashitaka looks out of the screen and growls lowly, "It's coming! he growls lowly.
At this point, San is outside the ironworks. Ashitaka is the only one who "sees" San, whom the women cannot see.

Example 3
Ashitaka has healed from his wounds, but San, his mother Moro, and the other wild dogs, who were supposed to be nearby until last night, have gone off to fight with the humans.
Ashitaka is now alone, walking on his yakul through the rain and sun. Suddenly, Ashitaka turns around when he hears the sound of an explosion.
(1) Wild boars blown away by the explosion.
(2) Ashitaka with a somber look on his face.
(3) The ground exploding.
(4) A close-up of San running with his spear ready amidst the splattering of flames and dirt.
(5) Close-up of Ashitaka again. He suddenly notices the sound of gunfire and turns his head in the other direction.
His gaze is directed toward the taraba. Of the above shots, (1), (3), and (4) are in the middle of the battlefield, so Ashitaka, who is in a quiet grassland, does not see them directly. They are probably imagined by Ashitaka. However, by inserting close-ups of the Ashitaka in (2) and (5), the effect is as if the Ashitaka is witnessing the battlefield.

Example #4
When Ashitaka finally rushes to the battlefield, he finds the corpses of the people of the ironworks lying in a heap. The man at the iron pit said, "The men with the Chinese umbrellas used us as bait to lure the wild boars, and they blew the whole place to pieces. They threw mines from above," he explains to Ashitaka the horror of the situation. Overlapping with this cut, an image scene begins.
(1) Wild boars running furiously.
(2) San riding a wild dog joining their ranks.
(3) A group of wild boars heading for a rocky hill. However, an explosion occurs and they are blown away.
(4)The boars are blown away by the explosion.
(5) The ground explodes.
(6) Wild boars, wild dogs, and San pushing forward.
(7)Wild boars pushing forward after pushing down Karagasaren, who is on a rocky hill.
(8)At the top of the rocky hill, a line of mine fires.
(9)Karagasa-ren kicking down mine fires from the rock pile.
(10)Wild boars are blown away by a violent explosion.
(11)Carcasses of wild boars fall on people.
(12)Eboshi Gozen and his subordinate Gonza are looking at the left of the screen.
(13) San pushing toward the right of the screen.
Overlap and return to close-up of Ashitaka. In the above cuts, (4) (boars blown away by the explosion) is the same picture as (1) in Example 3, and (5) (exploding ground) is the same picture as (3) in Example 3. Ashitaka's imagination is recounted in this scene as a fact witnessed by the man at the ironworks. In any case, however, Ashitaka did not directly witness the scene.

When a close-up of a person is followed by an unrelated subject (a plate of food, for example), the audience unconsciously recalls the person's emotions (appetite, sadness, etc.) (an experiment conducted in 1922 and called the Kuleshov effect). The Kuleshov effect is the most basic film storytelling technique, but in "Princess Mononoke," Ashitaka's imagined picture, a picture that should never have been visible (how could we possibly witness San charging head-on at us on a mountain dog?) ), the scale of what is happening and the irreversible tragedy of the situation are expressed by forcibly connecting these two images.
Ashitaka's life mission should have been to "see things through unclouded eyes. However, Ashitaka did not see most of the important events with the naked eye. Ashitaka's sense of helplessness probably stems from the bold cutaways that make him feel as if he is "seeing what he is not supposed to see.


(Text by Keisuke Hirota)
(C) 1997 Studio Ghibli, ND