"Spirited Away" is Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece - a modern-day fairytale about Chihiro, a typical Japanese pre-teen, and her (unplanned) journey into the Japanese spirit world - a kind of Shintoistic land through the looking glass. In Miyazaki's vision, the realm of the spirits, while often beautiful and governed by magic, is neither ethereal or cutesy. Instead, after her parents are turned into pigs for the eating magical food they happen upon, Chihiro finds herself in a very concrete world that is if anything more mundane - and certainly harsher - than her own. Chihiro is neither a princess nor a savior in this reality, but is instead pressed into service as a cleaning maid in a bathhouse for Shintoistic spirits (including among others, radish spirits, river spirits and stink spirits).
So many of Miyazaki's most cherished themes are explored in this film - the delicate balance of humanity and nature, the joy of flight (as Chihiro rides on the back of her dragon friend) and a belief in a fundamental decency that exists inside all human beings. Miyazaki resists easy sentimentality towards his characters, but shows real affection for all of them and does not villainize any of them. Even Yu Baba, Chihiro's primary antagonist and owner of the bathhouse, or the nameless spirit who threatens to eat anything and anyone is his way have complex motivations and redemptive qualities. Unlike Disney's dazzling but calculating sentiment, "Spirited Away," like all of Miyazaki's movies, has a sincere generosity of heart that is deeply moving without ever feeling manipulative.
Then there's the sheer beauty of the animation, music, character and sound design. Of all the movies I've written about so far, this was the hardest to choose a single screen capture for because there are so many jaw-droppingly beautiful and haunting frames throughout the film. Hit pause at almost any point on the DVD and you have a gorgeously composed, richly detailed still. Miyazaki draws few lines to describe Chihiro, but he knows just which ones to use to delineate her energy, awkwardness, vulnerability and growing courage as she becomes part of the world she has fallen into.
One of the things that makes "Spirited Away" so satisfying is that it takes place in such a fully realized world, one that feels consistent and alive beyond Chihiro's adventures in it. We get a real sense of how the bathhouse works physically, socially and even financially simply by watching Chihiro interact with it. Miyazaki never hits us with an exposition dump and, although the pacing is deliberate and gentle at times, the story keeps moving along. This really is a film that respects and trusts the intelligence of its viewers, whatever age they may be.
This is my fourth time around with "Spirited Away" and I'm still seeing new things with every screening, while being reminded of the familiar pleasures and awe of its world. I found myself wanting to know more about the depth of Japanese mythology and spirituality that informs and enriches the film, but this is such well-crafted visual storytelling that at no time in any of my viewings did I have trouble understanding Chihiro's motivations and the social rules that drive the story.
This is a film that I will keep coming back to, year after year, and can't wait to show to future generations as the children in my life mature.
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