I saw the Disney version which caused a lot of controversy in Japan as the director Hayao Miyazaki is very anti the whole mass-similarities that Disney usually represents. However I thought that the fact that it was in English and not subtitled really involved the English audience more as we would have missed the feel of this animation if we had been busily reading!
The animation grabs the audience in the first few minutes and keeps you there for all 125 of them. Chihiro the 10 year old girl is probably easy for kids to relate to. She's cute, speaks her mind, shows fear, speaks up to her parents... and she whinges on car trips. Her parents are making her move house, they get themselves lost and decide to explore a pretty eerie building they come across. They end up in what they think is a Japanese theme park. The rivers are clean, the buildings are ornate and the colours are vivid. It could almost be real.
Suddenly, Chihiro is in a world full of spirits and workers. She is the only human there and must find a way to free her parents and return to her own world. She has to do this by working hard in a bath house, contracted to Yu Baaba, helping Lin and being helped by Haku. Her time in the bath house is pretty challenging, but Miyazaki does not use the typical good and evil to distinguish his characters. Instead Chihiro must use herself, her abilities and deductions to befriend the people and spirits there, which she does with the utmost respect and she accepts her plight.
There are many things that adults will love about this animation; the Japanese customs, the respect the workers have for the spirits and the lessons some of the spirits have to teach us. Then there are things for the children. I really loved the Susuwatari which are these very cute little black creatures with big eyes, who help Chihiro, and love star shaped candy. There is a lot to this animation, both spiritually and visually. It is a fantastic story and magical.
Spirited Away cost 1.9 million yen and not a single hand drawn frame was cut. It won the Golden Bear at The Berlin Film Festival. |
