Spirited Away

Original Title: 千と千尋の神隠し
Romanized: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi
Literal: The Spiriting Away of Sen and Chihiro

Plot Synopsis

Chihiro is a young Japanese girl who is upset about her family's move to a different part of Japan. But when her father tries to take a shortcut through the woods to get to their new house, they stumble across a mysterious tunnel. Despite Chihiro's misgivings they explore the other side and find what the father believes to be an abandoned amusement park, left over from the recession. While Chihiro's parents chow down at an empty restaurant mysteriously well supplied with delicious food, Chihiro sulkily wanders off and finds an enormous bathhouse. Accosted by a strangely dressed boy who urges her to escape before sundown, Chihiro returns to her parents only to find that they've been transformed into pigs. As she tries to flee, she discovers that she and her parents have wandered into another realm, and the bathhouse is where many gods and spirits come to relax and unwind. For a chance to save her parents and escape, Chihiro must make a deal with the witch Yubaba, ruler of the bathhouse, to work for her. But how can she succeed when Yubaba steals her name? Will 'Sen' be a slave in the bathhouse forever? Or does a worse fate await her?

Quick Review

Rating: 5 / 5
Reviewer: Arcane
Review Date: 2003-01-25

In Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki has let his astonishing imagination simply run riot. In Yubaba's giant bathhouse, Miyazaki has created what will almost certainly be his most memorable achievement of all. Visited by a bewildering array of gods, staffed by a range of inhuman characters, with it's own lore and ruled by the nasty Yubaba (a character as fascinating as the bathhouse itself), the bathhouse is a magical microcosm the likes of which I've seen in no other film. It is also a technical triumph--the computer-aided animation flows smoothly and blends perfectly with the hand-drawn art, and both the colour and sense of motion are dazzling. The plot is the film's only weakness--it's a fantastic and wonderful story, it's just that the flow of the narrative lets it down a bit at places.

Spirited Away is a film for everyone who will ever retain at least a tiny fragment of their youth in their hearts, even when they've grown old. It is an utterly immersive and compellingly beautiful fantasy and an absolute must-see film.

US DVD Review

Disney's impressive DVD has only one big flaw: When you start the film, it opens with the introduction by John Lasseter (as, in fact, do all the Disney Ghibli releases of the era). After about the second time you see this, it starts to get very annoying, even if it is easy to skip. The video is gorgeous anamorphic widescreen and the two soundtracks rich Dolby 5.1. Extras include a "making of" special, art, a feature where you can compare the original storyboards to the scenes they eventually produced, interviews with some of the dub cast, and the original Japanese trailers.

Content Guide

Rated PG, on account of some mildly violent content and disturbing imagery that younger children will probably find scary.

Violence: 1 - Nothing harmful, but there is some blood splashed.

Nudity: 0 - Nothing at all.

Sex/Mature Themes: 0 - A very clean, low-key romance.

Language: 0 - Not a word.

Notes and Trivia

The two seemingly different names--Sen (千) and Chihiro (千尋) of the main character come from the fact that "Chihiro" is written with the characters for "thousand" and "fathom"; when you take away the second character, you're left with only "thousand", which is pronounced differently on its own.

The name of the bathhouse is also something of a pun; Japanese public baths frequently have the character "yu" (ゆ) on them, short for "oyu," meaning bath or hot water. The bathhouse in the film also has a character that can be read "yu," but it is the character for oil (油). This is presumably an indication of the opposite-ness of the spirit world.

The film is a product of Miyazaki's direction and Studio Ghibli, his production company. Unlike many Miyazaki-directed films, which are based on existing stories, the plot is original, apparently inspired by a friend of Miyazaki's sullen 10-year-old daughter.

Although Princess Mononoke (through Disney's Miramax) had seen a limited theatrical release and Fox had previously released My Neighbor Totoro (as well as the infamous "Warriors of the Wind" dub of Nausicaa long ago), this film marked the beginning of Disney's "big scale" Ghibli releases. It saw a relatively wide theatrical run in the US through late 2002, and was given a full treatment on DVD. It won an Oscar in 2003 for Best Animated Feature (the first anime to do so), as well as a host of other awards around the world.

Likely based at least partly on the claim that this would be Miyazaki's final film (as it ended up, it wasn't), Spirited Away was inordinately popular in its initial 2001 domestic release in Japan. It out-grossed even Titanic (the former record-holder) in that country, and was the first film to take in over $200 million (equivalent) before opening in the US, almost all of that in Japan. As of 2006 it remains the highest-grossing non-Hollywood film in the world, again almost entirely based on its income from Japanese theaters.

Availability

Available in the US from Disney (Buena Vista Home Video) on bilingual DVD and dubbed VHS. The soundtrack is also available from Milan Records.

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