An adventure that will leave you spellbound

Rating: 8/10 (27 April 2008)

"Spirited Away" is a great film, but not great in the way that most Americans will think of movies. This film is an adventure unlike anything the western hemisphere has ever seen (unless of course you belong(ed) to your high school anime club). It's a story about simple, pure and true values, not a story about life's deepest questions and that's what separates it from the dominant form of "Western" films.
The story is about a young girl named Chihiro who is moving with her parents to a new town when a stop along the way leads them to what appears to be an abandoned carnival. You get the feeling things aren't that simple and before Chihiro knows what hit her, she is in a spirit world and her parents have been transformed into pigs for gluttonously infringing on the spirit world. To return to her normal life and get her parents back, Chihiro must work at a spirit bathhouse led by a cruel witch named Yubaba.
There is no explanation of what this world is in relation/comparison to the real world that the characters were in in the beginning, but once you get past that, it's all about the creatures, characters and bizarre events that happen. The world is unbelievably imaginative, combining both elements of conventional fantasy and ideas that are completely fresh. Whether it is the odd, but powerful creature named No Face, the multi-legged old boiler operator Kamajii or the bug-eyed, insane Yubaba, "Spirited Away" boasts an intriguing cast of characters.
Most importantly, the film is about the values of love, friendship and helping others. We watch Chihiro, a sort of passive, ignorant girl learn (in some of the oddest ways) what it means to be selfless and giving and the film is her transformation into a better person. That's it. No deep criticism of humanity (other than don't be selfish), no questions about life, just a reinforcement of ideas that so often are either overlooked or expressed in uncreative, unoriginal ways. A children's film could have gotten the same ideas across, but "Spirited Away" shows that there are different ways to think about why those values are important.