Reel Retro Review - Spirited Away (2001)

Anime master Hayao Miyazaki follows up on his record-breaking opus Princess Mononoke (1997) with this surreal tale about a lost 10 year old girl. A hybrid between Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, the film follows Chihiro who, during her family’s move to a new town, stumbles into a bizarre, dangerous, yet ultimately charming spirit world.

Being one of my earlier expeditions into anime meant I viewed this film as an outsider.

I’m not one of those ‘cool nerds’ who have loved anime before mainstream planted it in our psychology as fashionable through offerings like The Matrix and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (these are just two of the many the live action flicks that have drawn inspiration from the genre).

As far as anime goes, I’m an impartial judge. I could take it or leave it. Thus my judgment of Spirited Away is on it’s merit as a stand-alone film not as a representation of the genre of anime itself.

The story though seemingly innocent doesn’t feel like a children’s film. Chihiro finds herself trapped in an eerie spirit world where humans are turned into pigs for the feasting of spirits. In order to save herself and her parents (whom have already transformed), she must secure work at the spirit bathhouse run by the powerful - and somewhat fearsome - witch Yubaba.

Despite being a ‘smelly human’ she manages to befriend fellow workers and customers alike. She falls in love with the kind spirit Haku and takes it upon herself to save him from his deadly enslavement to Yubaba.

The plot may seem simple, but there is nothing ordinary about this film.  Though traditionally animated through drawings, the film is visually breathtaking. It’s not shimmering or bursting with radiant colour like the modern animation of Up or Finding Nemo, but there is something tangible and beautiful about the imagery of this film.

This film highlights the stark different in Japanese and Western culture. Even in this English-dubbed version which has been Americanised, I have no idea what Spirited Away is referencing.

It is packed with phantasmagorical imagery and seemingly lysergic metaphors (the radish spirit?!).  I cannot tell you it’s deeper meaning…I could (like many others) make uninformed, Western-influenced assumptions, but it would be ignorant of me to even try.

The reality is, this film takes us places that we struggle to conceive even in dreams.

It’s this lack of understanding that makes the experience so magical, and despite our cultural detachment, the film still makes a connection with us. There is something about it that is enchanting. It feels so incredibly foreign, yet ultimately cozy and familiar…

In fact, the film could be described as a mash of contradictions: The soundtrack is subtle yet haunting. The content is charming yet dark.  The characters within are threatening and mean, yet warm and human. Some images are straight out of a nightmare, yet others are… well there’s no other word for it: cute!

No doubt Spirited Away loses something in it’s translation and die-hard fans will be cursing me for watching the dubbed version, rather than with subtitles.

Sure, it’s not how the film was intended to be seen, but the American dubbing is generally good and only the delivery of some lines comes across as jarring.

Admittedly some depth is lost through the simplifying that comes with dubbing, and perhaps by watching the subtitled version I may grasp a better understanding of the layers to this story.

But that’s a part of why I loved the film so much; I could relate to it so little and this only increases it’s magic.

Spirited Away, though not regarded as one of the most seminal pieces of anime, is undoubtedly a brilliant film that could even be enjoyed under the guise of it not being a foreign film. This is evident in it’s success in the mainstream Western market.

It could be argued as being a little overlong, but the world is so enjoyable to witness that this can be forgiven.

I rate it 4 out of 5 stars.