My favourite film of all time

Rating: Null/10 (13 January 2020)

Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away is a story of Chihiro, a young girl moving to a new town with her parents, who gets trapped in the realm of spirits when she and her parents explore an abandoned holiday resort. There she must learn to cope with hostile beings, unexplained rules and the fact that her parents have been cursed into pigs for their crimes.
The film has been compared to Alice in Wonderland, and there's a lot of truth to that. Chihiro and Alice are rather alike in their general demeanour and character. Chihiro is a bit more sullen, whereas Alice takes it all a bit more in stride. You definitely feel like Chihiro is in more danger throughout the film. But both Wonderland and the spirit bathhouse operate using logic not belonging to the human realm.
And that's one of the best things about this film. Its world is a strange one and there's always a new surprise around the corner. But for some reason it all makes sense. Like there's this scene where Chihiro and Haku, her new protector, have to cross a bridge and he tells her to hold her breath or she'll get noticed. Does that objectively make any sense? No, but in that instance it's completely logical. You just get it. Holding your breath makes you invisible to spirits. Makes perfect sense.
And the whole movie is like that. Apparently Miyazaki got his inspiration for the film by watching his young nieces and other relatives playing around. Which makes a lot of sense if you've seen the film. It is internally consistent and you always feel like its following rules. But they're the rules of a child's imagination.
Furthermore, it's gorgeously animated, very well voice acted, with fantastic characters, songs, ideas and locations. It's a movie that you could play on mute and it'd still be one of the best movies you've ever seen. Likewise if you only heard it playing from another room. It's both child-like and surprisingly mature at the same time. Most character start out scary, alien and a bit threatening, but quite a lot of them have become your friends by the end of it.
My personal favourite. One of the few films I'd call perfect. Please, if you're ever going to see even one Japanese animated film, makes it this one.