Written by: Hayao Miyazaki
Starring: Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki, Takashi Naito, Yasuko Sawaguchi, Tsunehiko Kamijō
Rating: [5/5]
Going someplace new brings general feelings of fear as it manifests thoughts of what it could bring and how it compares to the past. This gets felt in various aspects of life, but in Spirited Away it centers on a young girl trying to reconcile with moving to a new town as she gets mixed up in a spiritual world filled with various spirits and individuals with their own aims and ambitions. Quite the journey and one presenting such a refreshing and impactful tale operating on multiple levels of providing entertainment, but also incredible themes fully explored through the narrative.
On her way to a new town with her parents, Chihiro (Rumi Hiiragi) and her folks stop by what looks like an empty amusement park. As her parents start eating food that’s been left out, the day turns into night and her parents evolve into pigs as she discovers this area turns into a spirit world at night where her presence proves unwelcomed and a danger to anyone involved with her.
Of the many things the master, Hayao Miyazaki does well with his stories, crafting exquisitely textured and fascinating worlds serves as one of them. He has a way of telling stories in two hours and having them take place in such rich environments where you get more than enough of your fill but still want to come back for more. With Spirited Away, Miyazaki creates his most complex setting allowing for a wonderful allegory to the real world as it explores these spirits, those who run this particular bathhouse, and the girl in the middle of it all, Chihiro.
This particular world works through different mechanisms powered by individuals making it all work. Down from the boiler man Kamaji (Bunta Sugawara) to the chefs, and the bath workers like Lin (Yoomi Tamai), which Chihiro eventually joins. As displayed by individuals explaining how this all works to Chihiro, everything works there through the utility of others. If one cannot work then they no longer serve a purpose, which makes it vital for Chihiro to get a job at the bathhouse or risk getting turned into an animal much like her parents. The difference between them shows the mindset difference of giving and taking in this world where Chihiro offers her services towards something while her parents represent the side of consumerism where they take with no regard for how it can impact others. Proving utility begins as early as ten years old for Chihiro, which allows for some darker readings of this world and the way she gets pushed into working in a bathhouse setting at a terribly young age. It creates some stark implications amid the larger idea this feature wants to present about being of service. This lies as one of the major themes of the feature as a whole and the way it gets expressed lands so well.
Everything in the feature carries this tone of wonderment and fear in how Chihiro experiences everything and rightfully so. At the onset of the area turning into the spirit world, she sees everything suddenly go dark and heads back to her parents who have turned into pigs. This revelation comes as a shock but also gets presented in quite an unsettling manner, which displays the undercurrent of horror ingrained in this feature. Stepping into a world where spirits suddenly appear is a terrifying thought and a young girl like Chihiro sees that happening right before her as she must also do it alone seeing as her parents turned into pigs. The appearance of these spirits also terrifies if not for the softness in the wonderment Miyazaki crafts through them. Even the more frightening-looking ones display something that can also be seen as friendly as the masterful director has done with other creatures in his illustrious filmography. Still, having this all take place through the eyes of a young girl makes this whole ordeal quite scary.
As one can expect, on a visual level the hand-drawn animation utilized by Miyazaki and his team is absolutely sublime in capturing the wide array of characters in the world and how they stand out. While some carry similarities like the chefs and chiefs of the bathhouses, these spirits have such a distinct look to them making us wish we could get a whole backstory on each of them and what they represent. We certainly get some explained like the spirit of the polluted river, which famously marches its way into the bathhouse looking to be cleaned. It presents quite the situation Chihiro needs to handle early on but also embeds a message of how we impact others through our carelessness like polluting a river as a society. In that regard, we all act as Chihiro’s parents and Miyazaki thus makes the claim we should be turned into pigs.
Of all spirits, the one who carries the most intrigue and receives the most screentime is No-Face, which serves as its own powerful tale within this whole narrative. A spirit representing loneliness seeking connection with others and the way it gets displayed in this feature certainly leaves quite the impression. It has the power to give everyone what they want, in the case of the bathhouse employees it’s gold, but the attention it receives becomes a drug as it continues to grow larger and more monstrous in receiving this attention. However, it all comes at the cost of an exchange and not something organic, which never ends its desire to continue this excess. Where Chihiro exists in the story shows a level of innocence in her but also what she represents compared to these other individuals.
Little snippets of this feature can serve as their own masterful pieces of storytelling in the way they convey the overall message Miyazaki seeks to convey. A train ride alone Chihiro takes serves as its own story but the way everything gets seamlessly pieced together shows what makes this feature such a masterstroke by this director. Each tangent gets a meaningful conclusion and every theme receives a thorough exploration all wrapped up in this story of a fearful young girl unsure of what her future has in store for her. It further makes sense why this feature became a global smash hit and even garnered him Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards, as no one could deny what this feature accomplishes on a storytelling and visual level.
Every watch of Spirited Away further cements what makes this feature one of the greatest to ever be created not only in animation but filmmaking as a whole. Such a textured world filled with wonderful characters and spirits displays what makes this such a fascinating setting. I could have spent another two hours just further exploring the operations of this bathhouse and all of the spirits that make their way there along with the reasons why. Miyazaki gives us just enough while entrancing us into this terrifying but uplifting story for the young Chihiro as she musters a level of courage she never had to utilize before making for such a wonderful arc for her. Simply an exemplary film in every aspect further making the case its director remains of the greatest to ever do it.
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