Holy shit, I'm freaking out. I'm sure everyone is annoyed by my ranting about Princess Mononoke and Miyzaki, but I can no longer contain my excitement. I just found out that a local art house is going to be showing a retrospective of Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli's films. Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind, Kiki's Delivery Service, Pom Poko, Porco Rosso, Only Yesterday, and Whispers of the Heart all in one weekend! I only hope I'll be able to savor and appreciate each and every movie...

As if things weren't going great already, Aint It Cool News has done an interview with Miyazaki. I'd like to write some comments on some specific questions.

MORIARTY: Lady Eboshi is hardly what I would call a conventional villain in MONONOKE. In fact, all your films seem to studiously avoid black-and-white stereotypes about good guys and bad guys. Is it important to you to avoid villifying characters?

MIYAZAKI: A true villain -- someone who manages to live with a hole where their heart should be -- doesn't interest me in the least. If they don't interest me, they aren't going to show up in one of my films.

Someone on the Miyazaki Mailing List once said that Miyazaki doesn't have to create villans to create heroes. Miyazaki's works always capture the complexity of everything, while at the same time being simple and very serene.

MORIARTY: You spent well over a decade preparing to make MONONOKE. You did pencil sketches of San as early as 1980. Now that the film is rolling out to audiences around the world and you've had some time to live with the film, are you satisfied? Is it what you had hoped it would be?

MIYAZAKI: I can't answer that yet. I think we'll have to wait at least 10 years before I can know. We need to wait until all those children who are just 10 now who are seeing the film grow up, until they're 20 years old. We'll have to wait to see what impact it has on them, on their relationship with the world. To me, you can't measure the success of a picture on how many tickets it sells. You can only measure it in how many hearts it changes.

This is very interesting. You may think, "It's just a movie, why/how could it change someone?" Nausicaa, I think, changed the very course of my life. It also reveals that Miyazaki truly intends Mononoke to be a movie for children to see. Many American reviewers have been saying that this isn't a movie for children, but I disagree. I'm not saying children will understand the more subtle aspects of it--I didn't when I saw Nausicaa--but maybe it will inspire them. It sure did for me. Kids can frequently see things adults cannot. Just because the movie contains some graphic scenes (decapitation, dismemberment) doesn't mean children can't see it. We let our children see live action movies with similar amounts of violence. I have decided I want to take my newpews to see this movie. They have it tough, and I hope that maybe the movie will spark something in them to make their lives better.

MIYAZAKI: I always struggle about what age to set a film in. For TOTORO, it was very particular, very precise. I knew it had to be set in 1953, when there was no TV to intrude on the lives of children. It's that last moment, when imagination is still important, before 1955, when TV arrived. For MONONOKE, I had to set it then. The Kamakura period, the time right before the Muromachi period, would have been incomprehensible to modern viewers. As far as KIKI is concerned...

This is also really interesting. I remember hearing that Miyazaki thought that children should go out and play, and not sit at home and watch his movies. Odd words from a man whose livelyhood relies on those videos, eh? But I agree. Children can enjoy his films, but it's more important to have their own adventures.

MIYAZAKI: All I know is that my next film will be set in Japan, in a version of Japan where fantasy and the modern world are combined. Even here, even while I visit with you, even while I travel, I lie awake at night, moaning, worried about what shape this film will take.

Wow.

I truely think that Miyazaki is a modern master. It's great that he's appreciated in his own time and in his own country... I wonder how Princess Mononoke will go in the US. It will definitely get rave reviews. Roger Ebert has mentioned it several times in his newspaper column and his show--and he hasn't even reviewed it yet. But I have a low opinion of American society, and I doubt most people will be able to see it as anything more than "Ferngully with guns."