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Sunday, March 9, 2014

Family Movie Night: Spirited Away

Title: Spirited Away
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Original Release: 2001
Choice: Our Girl's
My Overall Rating: 4 stars out of 5
via Spirited Away Wiki
Few movies in history have achieved the commercial and critical success of Miyazaki's Spirited Away.  It is the highest grossing Japanese film of all-time and added plenty of hardware to Studio Ghibli's trophy case.  In addition to winning best animated feature at the Academy Awards and best film at the Japanese Academy Awards, Spirited Away was a juggernaut at the international film festivals.  When the British Film Institute compiled its list of 50 films you should see by the age of 14, Spirited Away received the most votes of any movie.



Even by Miyazaki standards, Spirited Away is weird and wild an wonderful.  Chihiro is a sullen 10-year-old girl moving to a new town.  On the drive to the new house, the family detours and enters the spirit world.  Her parents are turned into pigs so she is left to figure things out for herself.  She makes her way to an extraordinary bath house and gets a job until a solution to her predicament can be found.
via Spirited Away Wiki
Artwork is dazzling, of course, but the real fun is in all of the extraordinary spirits who inhabit the bath house.  Characters slide back and forth quite freely on the moral spectrum but Chihiro finds a few friends in the mix.  Miyazaki managed to build quite an amazing world on a very small scale.

The film's score was composed by Joe Hisaishi, long-time Miyazaki collaborator.  Not long after we watched the movie the first time a few years ago, Our Girl hatched the idea of composing her own music for the story.  Mind you, she didn't know a thing about writing music or even playing an instrument at the time but I found the inspiration fascinating.  I haven't heard much about that particular ambition in a while.
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10 comments:

  1. Andrew LeonMarch 9, 2014 at 11:20 PM

    This is a weird one for me. When I try to withdraw from myself and just look at this movie objectively, my conclusion is always that I should not like it very much. From a storytelling stance, it's a mess. There's no coherent plot. Things just happen. It's almost as bad as Alice in Wonderland. However, it is by far my favorite of the Miyazaki movies. In fact, I just, finally, ordered a copy of it and can't wait for it to get here.

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    1. The Armchair SquidMarch 10, 2014 at 6:41 AM

      For me, the strength of the movie is the masterful world building. The bath house is fascinating and terrifying all at once. I think the Alice comparison - made often - is a fair one but in typical Miyazaki fashion, his heroine has a bit more spark.

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  2. angryparsnipMarch 10, 2014 at 1:03 AM

    One of my favorites, every time I watch it I see something new.

    The idea of her being lost, remembering self, who she is, her name and trying to figure it all out is very interesting, very Alice. The thing is I never liked Alice In Wonderland but I saw it when I was young so that might be why I thought it creepy and really still like dislike it.
    The fact you have to take this movie at face value.You are dropped in just like she was.
    I found living in Japan you see that the spirit world is all around you and many if not most believe in it.
    On my walks back to my apartment past the rice fields I know the spirits were about.
    The bath hose is my favorite part and I have the big chick from the movie. Son has sent me a photo of the Onsen that the movie one is based on and will be visiting again. I so want to be there.
    Have you seen The Wind Rises yet ?or Up On Poppy Hill ?

    cheers, parsnip





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    1. The Armchair SquidMarch 10, 2014 at 6:42 AM

      We've seen Poppy Hill. That one was an easy win for me, given the Yokohama setting. We haven't seen The Wind Rises - never made it to VT, of course.

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    2. angryparsnipMarch 10, 2014 at 8:56 PM

      ack... don't you just despise that... at one theater they will have 3 screens of The Anchorman or the latest drunken buddy film but they can't have one showing The Wind Rises.
      We had it at one theater and we also have a great Independent Theater.

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    3. The Armchair SquidMarch 10, 2014 at 9:53 PM

      We actually do have a couple of great art movie theaters in Vermont but alas, the two latest Ghibli offerings still didn't make it this far. Thank goodness for Netflix.

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  3. StephanieMarch 10, 2014 at 10:11 PM

    Like Parsnip, I love this movie and see something new every time I watch it. It's maybe the weirdest of Miyazaki's, which makes its popularity even more wonderful. I love the dreamlike quality of the narrative. It feels like a fairy tale, in the best possible sense. Dark and dreamy, rich and earthy. The protagonists and antagonists are wrapped around each other in a yin-and-yang, light and dark with spots of each in the middle. Nothing is predictable, nothing is clear cut.

    Love it.

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    1. The Armchair SquidMarch 10, 2014 at 10:23 PM

      Very nicely put. Just when you think you have a character pegged, s/he surprises you.

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  4. Kelly SteelMarch 11, 2014 at 8:38 PM

    Sounds like an interesting concept. Off to watch it.

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