When Chihiro becomes real

Rating: 10/10 (27 June 2015)

Before writing this review I was reading some news from Japan about an antiwar demonstration organized by a 19 years-old girl in Sapporo, Hokkaido. The first thing that I realized was that a young female leading a political issue is an important achievement for a country still traditional and hierarchical as actually Japan is. The second thing I thought was Chihiro, the main character of "Spirited Away".
Miyazaki, in the already far 2001, at the begging of the Western crisis due to terrorism, before, and economic factor, later, depicted an adventure of a young girl in a imaginary as well symbolic world. The idea behind the movie, in fact, is the strive to survive of a female character in a world made of mostly masculine and adult hierarchy and tradition.But also consumerism and egocentric values. This struggle, however, will lead not to the defeat of this bad habits but to a peaceful harmony without nobody defected but everyone understood and accepted more.
If we think well, Chihiro starts her adventure when the parents eat too much to end transformed in pigs. They were punished both because they swallowed too much and both because they forget their little daughter warning them. In the same way the destiny of wanderer of many young people,today, starts because of negligence of their parents. Then we have the meeting with Kohaku, the little guy that at the ends we realized being the river in which little Chihiro fall while was younger. He was controlled by Yubaba, the witch that leads the magical bath in which Chihiro worked, but his name, which leaded to his salvation, were reminded to him by the simple heart of Chihiro. Miyazaki inverted the leading role of the male character giving to the girl the power to save the boy. In the modern Japan, seems to be suggested by the director, girls must be no more considered as the shadowed support of the man but the light that can help them while they feel lost with no hopes or directions. Another important element is the stinky guest of the bath completely cleaned by Chihiro showing so the unexpected determination of a young girl that, even if broke some rules, completed her task going beyond the general etiquette but making really satisfied the costumer. Who have said that a young girl cannot do what was achieved by old and experienced men? Miyazaki shows us the fragility of traditional code of manner as well the development a pure heart can bring to change a stable world. But, at the end, we cannot forget the figure of Faceless, the character most feared and loved, the one more easy to identify but more difficult to understand. It stands for the people, for the lost Japan of the after war without a line to follow, an ideal to fight for. He can makes money but will be lonely if not loved by a simple soul. As the one of Chihiro is.
Today Japan, as explained through the allegory of Faceless, is something with no stability, something that can makes money but also destroyed by the loneliness.Something neither bad neither good. Then, people work, as in the bath, in a fixed order when creativity of the others, in this case young people as well as women, risks to be killed by the ordinary routine and society tends to be hedonistic and egoistic forgetting the simplicity of the nature as well that of children. As the parents of Chihiro did.
However, one day a group of young guys, leaded by a young girl, organized a demo against the conservatory shift of Japanese government. And this day is today. And this revolution started in 2001 when Miyazaki trough Chihiro showed us an alternative society made on equality and peace. A new Japan. From a faceless to a warless one.