Last Thursday, October 10, I think, I watched one of the most amazing films in my life...I hope this is not an exaggeration.

Accalaimed animator, Murazaki Hayao (Princess Mononoke, Grave of the Fireflies, Totoro), outdoes himself and other films completely with his latest film, "Sen and Chihiros God hinding." I am not suprised it outdid Titanic. Titanic I watched and responded with a grimace, This film I walked out of still in the world of the film.

Before I try to delve into my thoughts on the movie - I would like to place a disclaimer here - I hope to get everything out onto this page - but it may be too long, too tedious, and I might run out of time, so I apologize for the half-assed nature of this page.

Story Line

Chihiro is a ten year old girl who just moves to the suburbs of Japan. It is unclear which suburb. On their way to the house, he father leads them, or more like misleads them through a field and into an abandoned amuzement park. Chihiro unwillingly follows her parents. Everything thing seems normal until dusk. As the sun sets, the field turns into a giant river, her parents turn into pigs and the gods of Japan and the world appear. Chihiro has entered into what Spencer would call the Farie world. Her only ally is a boy name Haku. Through his instruction she finds others like Kama jisan and Lin. Her challenge is to survive in this alternative world long enough to save her parents. To do this, she must go to Yubaba, who owns the Aburaya, or a bathhouse for the gods, and demand work. This is only the begining of a wonderfully intricate and sould searching adventure.

I will stop here with the story line for fear that I will give everything away. Go see the film, then you can read my commentary, unless you want to read it with what little information there is above. Otherwise, you can visit the site of the movie, http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/sen/.

Through children's eyes

In a world where adults live according to other adults rules, true liberations, true freedom may only come from children. Miyazaki Hayao has many messiah figures in his films, Shita in "Lapita", Naoshika in "Valley of the Winds," and Princess Mononoke in "Princess Mononoke." All these figures are both children, or adolecents, and women. I says something not only of what Miyazaki thinks of children, but also of women. Somehow, begin on the fringes of the social structure, both a child and a woman, these figures are endowed with special gifts that are the tools to the oppressed liberation. Same principle with Chihiro. Not only is she displaced from her old home, but she is a human in the world of Gods, a cross of two worlds. Her special gift is her heart and her name, her identity. With these things, she will be able to break the tyranny of Yubaba and save her parents, who are turned into pigs after eating the gods dinner.

The heros in this story and in this world are not the traditional adults. Instead, the adults are the oppresed, the clueless individuals imprisoned by their own gluttony and ego. Perhaps this has a small resonance to the story of the sword in the stone - only will one who is still young and untouched by the wants of the current society save the world. A child is still, ideally, unsullied by the false expectations and needs of world. Money, power, presitige, even knowledge are foreign concepts to them. One could go as far as to assert that they know what is real. Their ignorance has enabled them to dispell the illusions and see what is. Sounds very buddhist eh?

Furthermore, perhaps it is through children, who have just been released from the spirit world to the physical world, that the adults, who have been too long in the physical world to remember the spirit world, can be reminded if not guided through the realm of metaphysics. Children are still in touch with the word of imagination. They can see beyond what is before them...one can dismiss it as merely offspring of ignorance, or see it as insight into the abstract, the gran razon that Leytard spoke of, the realm of myth and dreams that contains the secret to living.

In otherwords, in our children lay the unlikely heros of tomorrow and perhaps today. Of course one could take a less romantic point of view and say that it is Chihiros repressed ambitions and anxieties playing themselves out in her imagination - but I prefer the former explanation.

Kaonashi and other characters

I would like to go through the other characters, but perhaps on aother day, I am running out of time, so I will focus on a character that I think is very important - Kaonashi, or faceless. It is a black figure with a white mask. Chihiro invites him into the Aburaya and he comes in. He does not speak....until he consumes someone or something. Furthermore, he cannot consume that individual until that individual wants something desperately and uncontrollably from him(Kaonashi). For example, there is a worker at the aburaya that become a victim of the Kaonashi. The Kaonashi entices the worker with gold pieces. Despite the abundancy of gold, the worker still wants more, it is then that the Kaonashi swallows the worker. Upon swallowing the worker, the Kaonashi begins to take on the traits of the worker. It begins to speak, using the speach and voice of the worker.

Kaonashi somehow acquires an uncanny attachment to Chihiro. He wants her to want something from him, offering her gold, offering her food, but she never seems to want anything from him. This, however, does not undermine her concern for him. This seems to confuse the Kaonashi, and eventually encourages it to release those he swallows, and find some kind of being as itself.

I thought about this as I watched the movie progress and an unsettling realization dawned on me...I saw the Kaonashi's tendancies in me. Kaonashi's only way of asserting identity or being what when others wanted from it. It drew from people's greediness then swallowed them. Kaonashi could not be a character without people wanting from it. The name, Kaonashi, means, faceless. He is faceless without human greed. One could say it is like the Christian satan. I saw it as the Taoist ego that destroys what it tempts. It needs, it depends on dependancy to assert self worth. However, Cihiro enables Kaonashi to see that it did not have to feed on peoples wants, or swallow peole to be someone - it could be Kaonashi and she would acknowledge him as that. The power to be and be well was in the Kaonashi. It was a message of hope - but that means I either have to find a Chihiro in myself or outside myself.

There are other things I want to talk about, but I must be going, so I shall make a list and come back later - perhaps tomorrow.

Name

Reincarnation - power of memory, power of love

Yu-baba and Zenibaba

Work and Being

Kaonashi.

Zenibaba and Kaonashi.

Totoro.

The red team's cheer leaders.