Spirited Away

New ideas are so often not taken advantage of in most Hollywood products because it obviously takes a great deal of time, dedication and creativity to create a fresh idea with no source material to base it on. Animation is a space where plenty of ideas can thrive and be creativity, and what’s even cooler is that its a medium that can be as experimental as it wishes and come from the mind of a person of a different age, gender, race, etc, and yet can still be enthralling if it captures people in the right way. The 2001 animated fantasy Studio Ghibli film, Spirited Away, from acclaimed animator and director, Hayao Miyazaki, is one of those rare movies that most can confirm is purely engrossing for everybody who watches it. A ten-year-old girl named Chihiro (voiced by Daveigh Chase) is moving to a new home with her parents, and they come across what looks like an abandoned theme park with tons of stalls containing fantastic looking food. Although Chihiro wants to leave while her parents decide to have some of the food, she finds herself in deep peril upon discovering that this is actually a gathering place for spirits who despise humans, and in eating the good, her parents have been turned into pigs. Saved by a young man named Haku (voiced by James Marsden), he convinces the owner of the spirit bathhouse, an old witch called Yubaba (voiced by Suzanne Pleshette) to give Chihiro a job in order to buy time for her to find a way to free her parents and get home. After being re-titled the new name of Sen and stuck in a bizarre place with danger at every turn, Sen must learn to cope with the spirits, quell their lust for her blood, and escape with her parents before it’s too late. Spirited Away is a truly fascinating film to the point that it’s you almost feel envious of the amount of creativity and passion that went into this film. It was met with universal acclaim,  it became the most successful and highest-grossing film in Japanese history and grossed $395.8 million at the worldwide box office, won the Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards (becoming the first non-English language hand-drawn animated movie to do so) and is considered by many to be one of the greatest animated movies of all time. While simple in concept, the levels that it goes in expanding upon the world and its inhabitants makes it a thrill for the eyes and a wonder to the mind. Its colorful, its cheerful, its charming, its well-acted, its wonderfully fresh and distinct, and it surprisingly keeps you invested the whole time despite not being heavy on narrative, its something truly special.

Inspired to write this story from the ten-year-old daughter of one of his friends, this movie was translated into English through a collaboration between Miyazaki and Pixar animator, John Lasseter, who convinced Disney to buy the rights and provide an English-language version, getting Kirk Wise to direct,  Donald W. Ernst as producer, and Cindy and Donald Hewitt as screenwriters for the English-language dialogue to match the characters’ original Japanese-language lip movement. From the outset, the story seems overly simplistic and even uninteresting. A young girl facing spirits that want to eat her sounds much less intense when it just results in her having to work in a bathhouse, but with that simple concept comes amazing possibilities, and this movie takes advantage of that. The lengths and details that went into building this area up with charming atmosphere and slight dark undertones makes the place both inviting and threatening. Its deliberately slow-paced, but in a story that fits the tone as well as the energy that most of Miyazaki’s films tend to follow. It relies heavily on emotion; the fears of the main characters, the desire for her to achieve her goals, the desperation in fixing a problem, it’s all feels remarkably genuine. It takes the best of both worlds by housing a fantastical story with visual oddities, but keeps it grounded with a simple but relatable lead who is stuck within this madness, and the movie knows when to up the stakes and when to let the movie just speak for itself. One of the best moments is just the main characters taking a train ride; there’s no action, no dialogue and it all relies on music, letting weight of everything that has occurred sink in, it soaks up the panic that had built up throughout the film, and releases it here in this soft, quiet moment, its masterfully built-up and delivered. Of course, this kind of slower pace isn’t for everyone and there are various moments of sitting and talking, and lesser scenes that could have easily been cut, which work for world-building and atmosphere, but not so much to further the narrative. There’s also a love story that blooms out of nowhere that feels very unnecessary with how the story was being told, but it’s a small setback to an otherwise perfectly told plot. With little action or plot twist, the goal is always clear, so the struggle always keeps building until the end and timeless nature of the story means that it can appeal to anyone.

So many of these characters have brilliant design with equally well-handled delivery. They have an Alice in Wonderland vibe to them in not only how quirky and expressive their designs are, but also in how it’s never clear which one is helpful or a threat. While not as heavy on madness as Wonderland, it has that fear surrounding the unknown that really brings a unique edge to this more subdued story, with every creature lurking around casually possibly being a major threat to the main character. In many respects, Sen can come across as very annoying to many people. She does spend a good majority of the movie terrified and whining at the spirits around her, but the fear is completely warranted. Any second, she could be killed with the simplest slip up, and her parents could be eaten any day she works there, so her whining does have meaning and she slowly gets more grounded as the film goes on. When most anime-themed products transfer from Japan to American, the re-dubs are often hated for how fake they sound, with this and most other Studio Ghibli products, that’s not an issue. The cast is very believable in their roles and the movie does a great job transition from one culture to another without feeling too jarring. No lines feel out of place and every actor feels perfect for their roles.The voice actress, Daveigh Chase, who was the voice of Lilo from Lilo and Stitch, has always managed to capture the essence of a child perfectly, and here its not different. It can be tiresome and annoying, but full of emotion and innocence at the same time, she really helps out in making you care about this girl and wanting to see her get out of this situation alive. The side characters all have this certain charm to them on both sides of the spectrum. The good may act tough and look threatening, but provide the support the main character needs, and the bad clearly has their own ambitions that make them more than just the simple bad guys. Haku works fine enough as the mysterious support for Sen, and while he could’ve used a bit more screen time to feel properly fleshed out, he still works enough and James Marsden is fine as the voice, there’s a fellow worker in the bathhouse named Lin (voiced by Susan Egan) who is also pretty memorable, bringing a sour even cruel voice to Sen originally, but leveling out as the film continues and resulting in a pleasant character to be around for the film, Yubaba is a fun villain with a good hag-like design and great voice acting by Suzanne Pleshette (in her final film role before her death in 2008). A creature called the No Face is so deceptively simple in design that it makes sense that he would be one of the key faces of the film, with almost no dialogue and a muddled goal that really makes him feel very tragic; to spread joy and happiness to all until he gets too worked up and berated which leads to him destroying all he cherished to serve, it’s a beautiful mix of contradictions that leads to a great memorable character.

None of this would be nearly as impressive if it weren’t for the great Studio Ghibli style animation working at full force on this movie. Everything from the backgrounds, the colors, the motion and especially the characters and their great designs, they work really well with this anime-style of animation. It has a great focus on motion and uniqueness, the movement on every character is great, the lines are so defined with the characters and the paint-like backdrop that feels right out of a story book, and the expression on all the characters feel distinct to every one of them. The film has a good mix of the warm and the cold colors that instantly help build an atmosphere; with the cold colors creating such mystifying unknown areas that build sudden fear, while the warmer colors are so showy and flashy that its deceptively welcoming. This movie is very much like a story book fable, from its simplicity to its sophistication, it’s complicated in the right places and quick to understand in the right places, all of this comes through the animation style alone. The music is also a staple point of Hayao Miyazaki’s work, with a beautiful orchestral backing score composed by Joe Hisaishi that feels grandiose, but also mellow in presence. It’s full of ‘spirit’ but beautifully haunting in moments.

Spirited Away is a true classic family film that has great imagination and amazing presentation. It’s not a film that will satisfy everyone; mostly those that don’t like films with simple premises and heavy focus on visuals and emotions as opposed to story and heavy complicated plot-lines, but for those that don’t mind, this is a clear winner on almost every point. It’s a charming delve into a wonderful world of craziness from the fresh bizarre mind of an incredibly talented animator and director. It got great characters, it has beautiful animation, wonderful music, good voice acting, a simple yet well composed story, and an overall great feel. A wonderful film for the whole family to enjoy and whisked away in.