![]() ![]() And her nemesis, Lady Eboshi, may be an ambitious pragmatist willing to sacrifice almost anything to achieve her economic and political ends, but she also makes an effort to welcome the injured Ashitaka, cares deeply about her community, and is a fierce defender of the marginalized. San is a staunch defender of her forest, but she’s also a black-and-white thinker who can’t bear to acknowledge her own humanity. Unfortunately, in this respect, director Hayao Miyazaki’s understanding of human nature hits all too close to home.īut both Nausicaä and Princess Mononoke refuse to demonize their human characters, instead portraying their depth as flawed individuals fighting to make sense of an often hostile world. Similarly, in Princess Mononoke, Lady Eboshi destroys the forest surrounding her territory in order to bolster her position-and when disaster ensues, it falls to outsiders Ashitaka and San (the titular Princess of the Wolves) to find a solution. In Nausicaä, the war between the militarily aggressive kingdom Tolmekia and its neighboring nation-states and tribes drives the story, as Tolmekia exploits environmentally destructive forces to gain the upper hand. And far from becoming outdated, like some green cinema of the twentieth century, Nausicaä and Princess Mononoke seem, if anything, disturbingly prescient as we approach a new decade.īoth films paint a brutally honest picture of manmade climate change, as well as of humanity’s inability to cooperate when tackling the problem head-on. ![]() In an age of cardboard-cutout environmentalist supervillains like the MCU’s Thanos and DC’s Ocean Master, antagonists like Princess Mononoke‘s socially progressive industrialist Lady Eboshi seem incredibly nuanced. While these films don’t sugarcoat humanity’s role in environmental destruction, they don’t oversimplify the problem, either. Why not stick just our heads in the (uncomfortably hot) sand?īut trailblazing works of environmental cinema like Studio Ghibli’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke still have the ability to cut through the noise and remind us exactly what is at stake in a way little else can. The chaos of conflicting viewpoints and projected tipping points can make climate change resistance seem like a lost cause. This past year’s onslaught of urgent reports, extreme weather events, and global demonstrations sparked by the growing climate crisis has been, to say the least, overwhelming.
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