Spirited Away

Spirited Away is one of those all too rare movies in which we can completely lose ourselves, and, if only for a couple hours, completely forget about our own lives and become entranced by another world. Hayao Miyazaki tells the whimsical story of a little girl named Chihiro, and her journey through a foreign land filled with incredible images and characters that do not require an idealized presentation for the audience to become completely enamored with them. The visuals are absolutely beautiful, requiring and rewarding an open mind and heart, while the voice work is fantastic, in both the Japanese and dubbed versions. Everything comes together to form a touching tale that everyone should be able to enjoy.

The bathhouse of the spirits in which Chihiro finds herself is a far cry from the stylized, luxurious palaces that often inhabit Disney’s animated features, but it is no less magical. It’s not just that Miyazaki brings everything from walking balls of soot to soaring dragons to slimy stink spirits to life, it’s that he makes all of them endearing in their own strange way, no matter how revolted we think we should be. At the end of Chihiro’s fantastic adventure, we can’t help but see the beauty that exists in everything the world has to offer, if we just stop to look for long enough. Granted, some details don’t seem to make sense when you think about them in the context of the story, but this movie is so much more fun when you don’t get too hung up on the little things and just go with the flow (which, I might add, is excellently paced…I hardly realized that I had spent over two hours in it).

To round out the atmosphere, Joe Hisashi’s soothing, meandering score is absolutely brilliant. It provides a terrific accompaniment to the images on screen throughout, without ever having the music become dominant or suffocating. The score helps drag out whatever shy, quiet emotions we might be repressing while we try to convince ourselves that we are far too mature for this kind of a movie, and then makes sure they stay out for good.

Chihiro’s journey begins with a car ride with her parents to her new home, removed from her old school and old friends. A wrong turn leads to what Chihiro’s father believes is an abandoned amusement park, but is actually a spirit world teeming with all kinds of fantastical creatures, many of which end up being a bit unfriendly to humans. What follows is a tale of self-expression, the pitfalls of greed and, ultimately, of coping with the hardest parts about growing up. Chihiro’s maturation is so convincingly illustrated by Miyazaki that we cannot help but invoke our own childhood memories to recall the times when we were not so far removed from the young heroine’s shoes (albeit in a perhaps less fanciful setting). My only complaint might be that some parts of the end of Chihiro’s journey lacked the emotional punch I was expecting, but that’s not to say that I wasn’t completely enraptured by Spirited Away throughout. The ending, as a whole, is incredibly sweet and uplifting for all involved. It’s tempting to say that the ending was almost too sugary, but honestly, by this end of this movie you’ll most likely be so far removed from an analytical mind that you won’t be able to stop yourself from celebrating right along with the rest of the characters on screen.

If you haven’t seen it yet, go see Spirited Away, as soon as you can. It really is one of the best movies I have seen in some time, and whatever you do take from it will most likely stay with you for a while. Spirited Away is a spectacular film for all ages; telling yourself you are too old for it would be a terrible mistake.