Princess Mononoke is certainly one of the most famous animated films in the world. It is also the work chosen by the International city of Aubusson tapestry for her first weaving in tribute to Hayao Miyazaki. A monumental work (5m by 4.60m) which has just come out of the museum’s workshops. A “business fall” which took place under the cameras of the whole world.
The moment is solemn. The one where the master weavers give the last strokes of the scissors to detach the tapestry from the loom. For the occasion, the Japanese ambassador to France is helping out under the cameras of NHK, Japanese public television. It must be said that the event is exceptional: “the combination of two cultures, two traditions“, enthuses Junichiro Nishiwaki. The culmination of a year of work for the Guillot workshop chosen to create the first of five works devoted to the world of Hayao Miyazaki.
Nature as a common thread
The tapestry transports us to the forest in the company of Ashitaka, one of the main characters of Princess Mononoke (1997), the film that made Miyazaki an international star. An ecological and poetic fable, the film tells the fight between nature and men, a theme dear to the co-founder of Ghibli studios. The tapestry, woven in rustic wool and linen threads in shades of deep green, translates this ambiguous and difficult relationship well: the man seems tiny in the middle of the gigantic trees that surround him.
After Ashitaka relieving his demonic wound who is now exposed in the space dedicated to Miyazaki at the International City of Aubusson Tapestry, four other weavings will be made by next year. The second, inspired by Spirited Away (2001), should come out of the workshops in a few months; for fans, it’s the Faceless banquet scene. Two tapestries will follow around the Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) and a final extract from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, one of Miyazaki’s first masterpieces, made in 1984.
The imagination of Hayao Miyazaki in Aubusson tapestry at the International Tapestry Center until December 31, 2023. Open every day except Tuesday.