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Chihiro, a ten-year-old girl in the midst of a move to the suburbs with
her parents, becomes trapped with them after walking through a dark
tunnel, in a town normally invisible to humans. It’s a place where
various gods live, from local deities to goblins and monsters, and her
parents, who have eaten the food of these gods without permission, are
turned into pigs. Chihiro herself begins to disappear and to survive,
she gets a job from the witch Yu-baaba at a public bath house for gods
which is the main attraction in this strange town. Here her adventures
are characterized by meetings with many types of deities, both good and
evil. Ultimately, through her wit and the help of her friends, the girl
survives. But the story ends not with the destruction of evil or the
disappearance of the town but with the simple triumph of that
survival. It’s just one of the recurring themes, this belief that to destroy evil would be to destroy the world, that defines the work of this renowned director. Quite possibly the most successful filmmaker ever in contemporary Japanese animation, called anime, Miyazaki set a 25-day box office record for a Japanese film with this picture. Even more impressive, the US$83 million it made broke the 1997 record set by the director’s own Princess Mononoke. Spirited Away arrives with an impressive record of its own, having already tied for Best Film at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival and also having taken prizes at the 2002 Hong Kong Film Awards and the 2002 San Francisco Film Festival. Released in the US through a distribution deal with Walt Disney Pictures which also handles earlier works by Miyazaki, the movie has been overdubbed in English for general circulation. The partnership with Disney may seem odd, given the generally gritty subject matter of most anime. But as his career has progressed, Miyazaki has moved from the violent sci-fi conventions of the genre to a softer approach. Often focusing on the exploits of young girls, he’s formulated a positive vision where phantasmagorical evil still exists but can always be conquered with the right attitude. It’s a lesson most children can relate to and, given this director’s phenomenal popularity, many adults, as well. |
