Spirited Away
(2001) dir. Hayao Miyazaki
viewed: 04/21/02 at Castro Theater, SF
Hayao Miyazaki’s film, Spirited Away, is both his newest and
very possibly his most-brilliant.
Miyazaki, for those that do not know it, is a Japanese feature film
animator who could finally perhaps be the filmmaker that rescues
feature-length animated films from the gigantic rut that Disney has
dug for them.
Miyazaki creates wonderful fantastic images, that are truly unlike
those of any other filmmaker. And Spirited Away is replete
with such wonderful invention.
Teh story is about a girl, Chihiro, who relocating with her family
to a different part of Japan, moving away from her friends to a new
place. The family takes a wrong turn and ends up exploring and falling
into a spirit realm that is ruled by an evil witch, who turns Chihiro’s
parents into pigs. Chihiro has to work for the witch at her business,
a bathhouse for the many native gods of the country.
It is a story, while original, echoes of traditional Japanese culture,
like a classic fairy tale. Miyazaki was said to have been inspired
by the “lethargy” of a young girl that he met, by her lack of understanding
and interest in traditional Japanese culture, and it seems a significant
aspect of the source and style of the narrative.
The landscape in this film is also very Japanese, supposedly based
on an older region of Japan, one not far from his Studio Ghibli.
Environment is always a significant theme for Miyazaki, and settings
are always rendered in loving detail.
The spirit world of Spirited Away is populated by an utter
menagerie of fantastic characters. There are too many to begin to
enumerate.
This is a brilliant film, fantastic, surprising, beautifully rendered,
sweet, scary, tremendous.
