Spirited Away is one of the most richly imaginative and visually spectacular films you will see this year.
This triumphant animated feature comes to us from director/writer Hayao Miyazaki, one of the grandmasters of the Japanese anime art form. There are images here that surpass those in live action films in scope and beauty. Such is Spirited Away's creative and narrative power that it surpasses even Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki's previous epic that gained mainstream acclaim on this side of the world.
The movie, presented by Walt Disney Studios, opens with 10-year-old Chihiro travelling with her parents by car to their new home. When Dad takes a wrong turn along a bumpy, unwalked path, they arrive at a dark tunnel in a wall.
Intrigued, the family enter and find themselves in a deserted village. When they come across a great feast, apparently for nobody, Chihiro's parents greedily devour it, but are transformed into large, squealing pigs. It turns out they've entered the spirit world, where bizarre Japanese gods and monsters freely roam.
Luckily for Chihiro, she befriends a mysterious boy named Haku, who tells her that, in order to rescue her parents from being slaughtered, she has to work in the spirits' bath house under the terrifying supervision of the sorceress Yubaba. In order to save the day, Chihiro must develop courage and learn to stand on her own two feet.
Spirited Away is peopled with hordes of fantastic creatures, such as river spirits, a talking frog, a faceless, masked monster, disembodied heads that bounce around like balls, a giant, spoiled baby who threatens to break Chihiro's arm if she doesn't play with him, and a multi-armed boiler room manager and his legion of soot-ball workers, to name a few. The film often takes surreal turns, but we take this strange trip with the plucky Chihiro (voiced winningly by Lilo & Stitch's Daveigh Chase), suffering the lumps and bruises with her as she tries to understand how this strange world works. Favourable comparisons to stories like Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and The Wizard Of Oz are not unjustified.
There are some minor flaws: Some of Disney's English dubbing isn't up to par -- the quality of Suzanne Pleshette's performance as Yubaba is inconsistent -- and the pacing is sometimes slow. But these are small quibbles that will certainly not detract from the movie's appeal to children.
And while Spirited Away doesn't offer the irony and in-jokes omnipresent in many animated films today, it will still charm adult moviegoers seeking a transporting, eye-opening and, above all, entertaining, experience.
(This film is rated PG)
More Movie Reviews
