The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (animation film)

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (Directed by Isao Takahata)/2013

Do not get me wrong, there is no doubt that this film is one of the most visually exquisite animation films I’ve seen in recent times.  I am however unsure about what the story was and the message it was trying to convey.  The story originated from the old Japanese folk story called The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.  As it is with any of these folk tales, it is difficult to distinguish which part of the story is original and which part of the story is a twist added by its creators of the film.

The story of the film is about a bamboo cutter who discovers a light shining out of a bamboo shoot and discovers a thumb-sized princess inside it.  He understands it to be heaven that gave her to him and brings her home.  When she arrives home she turns into a baby and the bamboo cutter and his wife raise her.  The baby soon grows into a beautiful young woman.  The bamboo cutter finds gold and silk robes in the bamboo forest and deems that heaven is telling him to provide a place for Kaguya where she could be a princess with a lifestyle befitting of silk robes.

The bamboo cutter builds a mansion for Kaguya filled with servants and the finer things in life and hires a tutor that will educate Kaguya on how behave like a princess.  The film delves into the ostentation and absurdity of the customs in the upper class.  After having grown up running around wild in the countryside, Kaguya struggles with “how the princess should behave”.  She attempts to fight back initially but unexplainably succumbs to it and falls into depression.

The story romanticises the country life of gardening, cooking and weaving which the bamboo cutter’s wife continues to engage in at the mansion.  She has a little cottage built next to a garden that is reminiscent of Marie Antoinette’s farm cottage.  This is much to the frustration of the bamboo cutter who is ashamed of his past and desperate to fit in and gain the acceptance of the upper class.

The film however lets these developments go which were for me the most interesting points and instead it goes back to the traditional story line.

The news of Kaguya’s beauty spreads and various princes try to become her suitor and she declines all of them.  Finally the king himself becomes interested and tries to gain her affection.  She becomes repulsed by the king and cries out for the moon people to take her.

It is then revealed that she was originally from the moon and she wanted to experience life on earth, which is considered unclean and full of suffering.  Before she goes back to the moon she makes a final trip to her country village and meets her childhood sweetheart, Sutemaru.  Kaguya tells him that she would’ve been happy if she was with him.  They talk about eloping together but she slips from his grasp and he wakes up and thinks it’s a dream.   I found it odd that Sutemaru was so ready to leave with Kaguya and didn’t give a minute’s thought to the fact that he had a wife and a child!

While the film romanticises the country life and glorifies nature, it also shows how bleak it can be when Sutemaru asks Kaguya whether she is willing to live the life of working hard and in poverty and half-starving all the time.  It makes us think that perhaps it was easy for the bamboo cutter’s wife and Kaguya to romanticise the village life while they are living in a mansion. This point builds on how Kaguya romanticised life on earth but once she got here she realised there was suffering and despair.

The day the moon people come to retrieve her, the bamboo cutter has an army prepared to protect Kaguya from getting taken but everyone falls asleep due to the celestrial music.  The moon people tell her to wear the robe from the moon that’ll make her forget all the suffering and uncleanliness of the life on earth.  The final message of the film is when Kaguya protests and tells the moon people that amongst all the suffering on earth there is also great beauty. What Kaguya seem to be saying is that it is better to have this suffering and be able to dream rather than live like the moon people with no awareness at all.   To me, this is consistent with her behaviour, throughout the film.  She had been always missing what she doesn’t have which caused great unhappiness and just before she’s about to leave earth where she had been miserable, she has a change of heart and suddenly the life on earth is just beautiful despite all its sufferings.

Is it that ultimately there are good and bad aspects too all life: be it rich, poor or celestial, and its our subjective view that disproportionately glorifies or romanticises certain aspects of a different life that causes us envy and suffering.  It seemed that Kaguya had a choice to use her wealth to do what was good and pleasurable for her; instead she chose to languish in despair thinking about her childhood past.

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