Spirited Away
October 31, 2002

     Spirited Away is about a young girl named Chihiro who finds herself in a spirit world.  While moving to a new town, Chihiro’s father takes a ‘short cut’, but instead they find themselves at an abandoned amusement park.  At first glance, there’s nothing special about it, but trouble soon befalls Chihiro’s parents as they consume tasty-looking food that was left conveniently at one of the food stands.  Not enticed by the lavishly laid out food, Chihiro takes to wandering around.  As night settles in, she returns only to see that her parents have been turned into pigs!  Now it’s up to Chihiro, with the help of Haku, to save her parents and return to the human realm.

     Brought to North America by Disney, Spirited Away is a Japanese animé movie, created by Hayao Miyazaki.  First off, this movie is obviously dubbed, seeing as it came overseas all the way from the land of the rising sun; so you can expect some unsynchronized movements with the mouth and a voice here and there, but I found the dubbing quite well done.  Seeing as it is Disney, they were able to get they’re own recognizable voice-actors such as, Daveigh Chase as Chihiro, Jason Marsden as Haku, Susan Egan as Lin and more.

     Spirited Away is an allegorical movie incorporated with many themes.  From courage to friendship, greed to love, this movie presents a wave of little lessons reminiscent of the more important principles in life.  Most of these themes can be found in the form of symbols, there are so many of them, it’s up to you to find them yourself.  Since the movie originated from Japan, there is a major cultural difference.  For instance, there are apparent inspirations from Japanese lore that cannot be fully understood by the average North American.  This can lessen the appreciation of the movie itself.  Still, even with the exclusion of some of the differences with the Japanese culture, almost anyone can experience a truly wonderful story from watching Spirited Away.

     The visuals of Spirited Away are really incredible.  It creates the whole ‘spirit’ mood and environment perfectly.  The animation actually takes you there, right into Chihiro’s experience.  The beautiful score only compliments everything about the movie even more.  With both of these elements hand-in-hand, a stunning and emotional, cinematic piece is created.

     Though animated, children under the age of ten may not find this movie as enjoyable.  Even with pleasant characters and settings, there are quite a few disturbing images, and a surprising amount of gore.  I mean, as far as gore goes in an animated movie.  This movie runs for over two hours long; which is a surprisingly long runtime for an animation.  Lastly, Spirited Away teaches us an array of strong lessons on ethical values, something we all can benefit and learn from today.  Many would dismiss seeing this movie almost immediately, but I highly recommend it for those craving for an outstanding movie. 

 - Bobo

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