a true masterpiece: everything movies are meant to be

Rating: Null/10 (6 May 2003)

Disclaimer: This review does not contain spoilers. However, if saying the names of the a couple of characters counts as a spoiler to you, then please do not read this.
This movie is a masterpiece. Mr. Miyazaki is a genius. I know that I am not the first to say this, but it bears repeating. In Spirited Away, a young girl named Chihiro is brought, albeit unwillingly, into an imaginative world of spirits. Some reviewers have discredited the movie due to its rather nonlinear plot. However, I put it to them: in what world that they have lived in is there a linear plot? Miyazaki has created a world, with its own innerworkings and side stories. The reason that many works such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, and The Lord Of The Rings have been so widely read, seen, and loved, is because the movies and books created entire universes. Spirited Away does the same. It is a world filled with colorful characters (double entendre intended) and wonderful emotions that few movies have ever been able to evoke from an audience. At the end of the movie, I, as well as the other people I know who have seen the movie, did not think the movie was too long. We wished it could have gone on longer. We care about the characters; when Chihiro is in trouble, we worry; when Haku (a friend/spirit/dragon - I can't elaborate more without giving spoilers)is shown to be healthy and well, we celebrate. The subplots that others have verbally dumped on flesh out the world, and allow the viewer to truly be spirited away. Add the plot, the world, and the characters to everything else, and this is a masterpiece.
There is a wonderful score that, although simple, does more for the movie then almost any other music has done for any motion picture. The environment is wonderful: it takes a world from a child's imagination and makes it seem real. And the colors: man, the colors! Get this movie on DVD. The colors are beyond what most of us dream about. Some have criticized this movie for attempting to make complex subject matter in an animated form, but it works perfectly. Trust me, after 5 minutes of the movie, the only reason you may care about the animation is how well done it is.
Also, this movie is more imaginative than almost any other movie. I wish everyone who says that there are no original movies would see this. Of course, there are elements of other movies and books in this (most noteable are Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz), but Spirited Away is highly imaginative. The spirits in this film are realistic and impossible at once; both a child's dream and an adult's world. The environments are no less. This world is impossible: it is so wonderful and different from everything we know that no adult could ever accept its existence. However, we want this world to exist. Just think how happy we would all be in this imaginative world. It is, in many ways the desired to be part of this world and to know its characters that make the movie so wonderful.
Spirited Away is a wonderful movie. It certainly deserved the best animated picture oscar, and I believe that a best picture nod was also in order. A
child will love the movie for the characters they can relate to, adolescents will worship the movie as a film that embodies all they search for in a film, with a love story for the girls, and enough action for the boys, and the adults will appreciate and enjoy the movie for its imagination: movies as original, intelligent and complex as this do not come along every day. Everyone who loves movies should see this movie. It is truly a masterpiece. 12/10.