The best bildungsroman of all time

Rating: 10/10 (10 April 2007)

I do not see how the story of maturity could be told any better than it is in Spirited Away. It is simply the story of a selfish girl who learns to work, told with perfectly executed emotion in the century-long tradition of Japanese film, and brilliant images that will stick in your mind for decades. Doesn't No-Face's monstrous devouring remind you of people, or events? The writhing of the dragon, the sludge of the polluted river spirit-- aren't these images you will come back to in real life? Miyazaki has gone beyond simply trying to tell a story. He understands the very medium of traditional animation and what it is best at doing, the things other media simply cannot pull off. It could not have possibly been executed in live action, or in computer-generated 3D animation. This film is a triumph for animation that sets a bar so high I wonder whether other media could possibly live up to it.
Spirited Away appeals at once to Japanese and non-Japanese, those who have seen Miyazaki's movies and those who haven't, film buffs and casual movie watchers, those who enjoy symbolism and those who want a fun story, fantasy geeks and those who prefer normal characters, those who love exciting scenes and those who only want to get a closer look at the scenery. Miyazaki has firmly harnessed the microphone and nobody can miss his message. Spirited Away should be the picture people see when they look up the word "anime".