43) Spirited Away

Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)

Director: Hayao Miyazaki

Starring (English Voice Cast): Daveigh Chase, Suzanne Pleshette, Jason Marsden, Susan Egan, David Ogden Stiers, Lauren Holly, Michael Chiklis, John Ratzenberger

I'll admit that despite having heard how good Miyazaki's films were supposed I'd always avoided them. I have a bias against anime grounded in the rubbishy Pokemon/Dragon Ball Z serials that get played on kids morning TV. It was only when a few people who's opinions I respected started to rave about his films that I thought perhaps I had a skewed perspective on anime/manga. I went and saw Ponyo at the movies last year, and wasn't blown away by it and I picked up Spirited Away on DVD a while ago and have taken a while to get around to watching. Kate had a rough day today and needed to unwind. She decided to watch it, so I sat down with her to give it a try.

Chihiro (Chase) and her family are on their way to their new house when a shortcut gone wrong leads them to an abandoned theme park. One of the restaurants in the town is filled with delicious food so her parents sit down to eat while Chihiro goes on exploring. As dusk arrives the empty streets become filled with spirits. Frightened, Chihiro returns to her parents to find they have been transformed into pigs. Chihiro is forced to get a job in the nearby bathhouse while she works out how she will rescue her parents, with the help of a mysterious boy named Haku (Marsden).

While it is nowhere near as prominant here in Australia, the Japanese company Studio Ghibli is up there with Pixar and Disney in terms of producing critically acclaimed animation over the last couple of decades. While a minority in the know already held Miyazaki's films such as Kiki's Delivery Service and Princess Mononoke in high regard, Spirited Away was the film which really garnered international attention. In Japan it smashed all sorts of records, knocking off Titanic as the highest grossing film ever at the Japanese box office, and it became the first film to have racked up box office takings of US$200million before it opened in America. Hayao Miyazaki won the Best Animated Feature Oscar for Spirited Away over an albeit weaker than usual field which included Ice Age and Lilo and Stitch. He would be nominated for this award again four years later for Howl's Moving Castle but be pipped by Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Honestly, I'm not blown away by Miyazaki's films, though I'm yet to see Howl's Moving Castle which Kate is adamant is better than Spirited Away. That is not to say I don't think they are very good films, they are, but much like Pixar in the mid 2000s I think reviewers and critics get a bit carried away in the praise they heap on them. Ponyo in particular I didn't think was worthy of the 5 star reviews it was getting. However, I do find them very interesting films to watch because they are not Western. The stories, often rooted in Eastern mythologies, are different from the usual narrative styles you get from Disney, Dreamworks and Pixar.

Spirited Away is a coming of age,life lessons, personal growth kind of movie. Through her experiences, Chihiro, who starts the film as quite a spoilt young girl, learns the importance of personal sacrifice for the sake of those you love. It's a nice enough story however, what you don't get which you expect from Pixar, Disney or Dreamworks, is an attempt to have the story operate on two levels giving something for the older viewer as well as the younger viewer. Spirited Away is quite straightforward and simple in that regard. There is also not a lot of narrative explanation, you just have to go with it.

While usually dubbing of foreign films can prove a bit dodgy, in this case the responsibility for the dubbing was given to John Lasseter from Disney Pixar and is excellent. While the cast for the English version is not exactly made up of household names, they do an excellent job. The success of Spirited Away has made doing the English dubbing for Miyazaki's films quite a sought after job with his two films since including the vocal talents of Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Jean Simmons, Lauren Bacall, Tina Fey, Liam Neeson, Christian Bale, Lilly Tomlin, Billy Crystal, Emily Mortimer and Betty White.

Spirited Away is a lovely film, and something a bit different to what you get from the mainly American animations which we tend to get here. It is worth a look, but if you are not an animation fan I don't think it is going to change your stance.