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lady eboshi I always feel a small amount of guilt whenever I write a one or two line entry, but at the same time I didn't have anything to say yesterday. Quite simply I wasn't awake long enough for something to happen that was worth mentioning here. I need to react to something before I can write anything and that wasn't the case yesterday before I fell asleep. I suppose that I could have mentioned that I gave myself a nasty blister on my finger. For weeks now whenever I use the computer I have been sitting in a broken director's chair. The front and back legs of the chair like to come apart as soon as I sit down, which sounds comical, but I find to be very annoying. Well, anyway, as I was squeezing the dowel back into the holes, my finger got pinched. In an instant, pain shot through my hand and I was very tempted to just throw the whole chair out my door into the backyard, but I didn't. In my mind I could picture the slow arc of the chair on its final descent. That small mental image gave me some relief, but didn't stop the throbbing in my finger or the bleeding. I spoke too soon about Princess Mononoke. It may have been gone from the arthouse theater here, but the larger chain of theaters here suddenly decided to pick it up. So I caught a matinee and I am glad that I did. It was so nice to see some animation that wasn't done by Disney. Animation has the potential to be so much more than mindless singing animals, which were thankfully absent from Mononoke. The story definitely had Eastern overtones to it that I am sure would go over the heads of most people. Everything takes place in an age where people still believe in gods and spirits, which is something that Western civilization hasn't seen in centuries. In the Christian world man was meant to rule over the other beasts. Man and animals are not on the same level in the world. At one time people were more open to these thoughts, but Christianity has sent all of these other ideas into the fringes of society. One character was very matter of fact about life and death and he comments stayed with me. He accepted that there is suffering in life and that there is nothing that we can do to change that fact. All of this was very familiar to me and somewhat close to what I believe. So often in Western culture we feel the need to place blame somewhere else rather than on ourselves when something we do not like happens to us. Either god has betrayed us or we refuse to believe that there are things in life that are beyond are control. The modern western man loves to believe that he is the supreme ruler of his own destiny. There is no room for the fates or gods that could control him. Some other people must care about animation since they were able to lure some talented people to do the voices, which I thought made the film even better. Gillian Anderson as the wolf god Moro was great as was Billy Bob Thornton as Jigo, but my favorite character would have to be Lady Eboshi done by Minnie Driver. She had a definite style and grace not often seen on the screen and puts to shame anything made by Disney.
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