Film Positives
Chihiro
Ogino (voiced by Rumi Hiiragi) and her parents are moving into a new home.
On the way, her father takes a wrong turn and ends up in front of a
strange, creepy tunnel. While mom and dad eagerly venture forward, Chihiro
cannot help but feel a strong sense of dread and uneasiness.
On the other
side is a wide open field which looks to be the remnants of an old amusement
park. The place is deserted, but an alluring smell of hot food brings
the family in closer. When they eventually find the stand, it too is void of
people. This doesn’t stop Chihiro’s parents from digging in anyway, but Chihiro chooses not to partake and continues to explore the park.
As the sun
begins to set, Chihiro comes across a massive bath house
resort. Oddly enough there's smoke coming from the chimneys, indicating the place is operational. Before having a chance to look any further,
Chihiro runs into a boy (voiced by Miyu Irino).
Looking frantic, the boy warns Chihiro to leave before the sun fully sets; otherwise she
will be stuck here forever. The entire place becomes alive with a strange
assortment of beast and spirits. Chihiro runs back to where she left her
parents, but to her horror they both have been transformed into pigs.
The window of escape closes and Chihiro is at a loss of what to do. Fortunately, the boy from
earlier finds her and offers to help. Introducing himself as Haku, he tells
Chihiro she must go see the owner of the bathhouse, the terrifying witch
Yubaba (voiced Mari Natsuki). Not doing so will cause her to suffer the same fate as her
parents. |
| Chihiro |
While in
Yubaba’s service, Chihiro must give up her identity and takes on the name Sen.
Regardless of what she's called, Chihiro must work hard as well as look for
any opportunity to save her parents.
Film Positives
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| Haku |
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| Yubaba |
This movie
is very good. What it reminded me of was the Ghost Parade from Pom Poko, which was far and away the best
part of an otherwise mediocre film. What Spirited
Away did is take all the bizarre, strange, and imaginative elements of
that one scene, turned it up to eleven, and made a movie out of it.
The First Act
Spirited Away doesn’t waste any time.
With the first ten minutes, literally everything is happening. It’s like a wake up alarm and you don’t how to turn it off. Ghibli films, but particularly
Miyazaki films have a tendency to just end. However this is a case where
everything just begins.
Jarring yes, but in best kind of way. The next hour and a half contains some
of the best work I have seen from Ghibli so far.
Every scene
is so much fun, not only to look at, but to really watch. There’s a ton going on,
there are so many tiny details, and a lot of
creativity. I’m willing to bet many of the creatures and spirits we see have
some basis in mythology, but everything has a distinct unique feel to it.What completely blew me away was the unmistakable existence of magic. What do I mean by that? In Totoro, there were spiritual elements, but there was more reliance on mysticism rather than spell crafting. In Kiki, magic seemed to be an off shoot of science. Both worked in their respective stories, but in Spirited Away there was something else.
You see it when Chihiro meets Yubaba. The way things moved and the way things interacted in the environment appeared as if Yubaba
was physically doing it all herself. However, she would be sitting behind her
desk, far and away from any object. Whenever
Chihiro was moved by the witch, you could almost see the invisible hand. It didn’t matter if it was pushing her around or zipping her mouth shut (that action by the way was extremely well animated).
This is the
first Ghibli movie I have seen where it felt as if absolutely
anything was possible. Anything could happen and it wouldn’t be hard to accept.
That’s provide it wasn’t Chihiro doing any of these things because the film
made it a point to mention she was the only human.
Film Negatives
I actually
do have something to say here and it’s something I’ve notice in almost every
Miyazaki film. However I haven’t seen it this ramped since Nausicaä.
Miyazaki is
a visionary; I will never say anything other than that. This is a man who knows
how to a story and tell it in a way that is unmistakably him. He's very detailed
oriented. The problem is, he sometimes gets too detailed.
In Nausicaä there were a lot
elements that didn't have a place in the overall story. So many of
the things going on ended up not leading anywhere and came off as a
waste of time. I saw the same problem here in Spirited Away.
Although I
love the beginning of this film, I’ll be the first to say these were just a
collection of scenes with very little tying them together. The only reason anything
ever happened was because Chihiro simple knew what to do.
For
instance, there’s a stink spirit who comes to the bathhouse. Chihiro is charged with taking care of this guest. She notices the spirit is actually in a great deal of pain. It turns out this monstrosity was really a powerful river dragon and Chihiro did him a great favor. To
show his thanks, he gives her some kind of medicine that could potentially
change her parents back to humans.
The problem
I have with this is, I don’t remember him ever saying that, but Chihiro still knew
what it did. Maybe it was said very quickly and I happened to miss it, but that's a pretty important detail which shouldn’t have been so easily
glanced over.It wasn’t just this, almost every time the story had to move forward Chihiro somehow knew where to go and what to do.
The Final Act
It starts when Chihiro sees Haku in his dragon form. From this point until the credits, the last act of this movie felt rushed and very
anticlimactic.
Was I expecting a huge showdown between Chihiro and Yubaba. Well since I’ve been looking at nothing but Ghibli film for the past two weeks the answer is no. However there was a decent amount of buildup establishing some kind of conflict was coming.
Was I expecting a huge showdown between Chihiro and Yubaba. Well since I’ve been looking at nothing but Ghibli film for the past two weeks the answer is no. However there was a decent amount of buildup establishing some kind of conflict was coming.
Chihiro
confronts Yubaba so she can take her parents home. Yubaba
will allow this only if Chihiro correctly picks her parents out from a herd
of pigs. I won’t say how it exactly plays out, but Chihiro does manage to pull
it off.
Question,
how did she know?
She got it
right and didn’t hesitate, so how did she know? The only thing I can think of is because of the magic hairband she received no more than two minutes before
this scene. It has to be this since it serves no function in the story, which
at this point is over.
The entire
movie was leading in a direction indicating something was going to happen, but then
it never does. It goes straight into credits. I was a little disappointed, not going to lie.
Final Thoughts
Ending
aside, I still had a lot of fun with this movie. This was, by a large margin,
the most imaginative and creative story thus far. If I had to pick the one film I was most looking forward to this month, it was this one.
Spirited Away is a masterpiece of
animation and just another brick in Miyazaki’s already legendary filmography. If
you’re like I was and haven’t seen this movie, don’t wait any longer. You’ll be
thankful you did.
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