Spirited Away: the review

So first of all, Spirited Away has been around for quite a while, so long in fact that I don't feel like googling when it came out. But, let's just say that if you know Studio Ghibli, you know the movie Spirited Away. It's a landmark in movies, basically a world famous combination of standard setting animation and the director Hayao Miyazaki's imagination. The kind of movie that can't really be summarized, the best you'll get out of someone who's just watched it would be:

@n@ that was awesome...

The hero of the film is young Chihiro, a whiny 10 year old girl who is in the process of moving to an entirely new world. New school, new house, new town. However, on the drive to said new world, her father decides he can take a shortcut, and that fatherly confidence quickly plunges Chihiro into a world of magic and mystery where her hidden strength has the opportunity to shine through.

Haku: "Go! I'll distract them!

First she meets Haku, a boy who looks her age that helps her in her panic at the spirits looming about her. Her guides her as close to safety as he can before he sets her free with a few instructions that must be followed lest she be discovered and kicked out without the opportunity to rescue her parents. Fear and responsibility are quickly shoved on her shoulders with no option to back down, so forward the girl goes. She shows herself to be stubborn and smart, knowing to not back down, and finding that she has what it takes to keep going.

The Bathhouse

Now, in a mystical place such as the bathhouse in which she has to work, Chihiro naturally ends up relying on plenty of friends. Knowing what it is to be truly afraid and insecure and to be given help shows her the value of others.

"Eat this, it will give you back your strength."

In a behind the scenes feature, one may find out that the director truly intended for this to happen, he said he had always been interested in lazy young girls in that he was sure there was
more there, just beneath the surface, using his co-worker's daughter as an example.



Spirited Away captures the audience immediately using the unexplained. Perhaps its
 best quality is the ability it has to bring a world strictly woven of imagination into a viewer's mind as 100% real. The plot is sculpted to show each scene as just another occurrence in the bathhouse of the spirits, yet carefully carries it along. Miyazaki's true skill lies in his ability to bring the most unexpected factors into the key roles of his story. Each character is fascinating and relatable on some level, even the antagonist Yubaba is a dynamic character with weaknesses and strengths: she spoils her son rotten and runs her bath house with the utmost efficiency and experience.


Of course, the last and possibly most important feature of Spirited Away is its animation. Stirring artistry is spun into every moment, every character is drawn to embody a soul; every setting, especially all the facets of the bath house, is steeped in the essence of its role. The beauty of the animation makes it easy for silence to be more meaningful than words, something Miyazaki often takes advantage of.

The score is also one of the many beautiful things in any of Studio Ghibli's films, always carefully woven into the backgrounds and characters and rarely noticed on the first time around, but never forgotten.

Most agree with me: Spirited Away won Best Film and Best Song at Japan's Acadamy Awards, the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Screen International Award at the European Film Awards, Best Asian Film at the Hong Kong Film Awards, and the best animated feature in America's 75th annual Acadamy Awards.