Sensational animation containing everything anyone could want

Rating: 9/10 (24 January 2010)

When her parent's spirits are consumed by their own greed, Chihiro must work in a bath house to find a way to rescue them, only for her to become sidetracked in a troubled place The first anime film to win an Academy Award brings together a collection of vivid imagination and collective youthful experience and innocence from acclaimed director Hayao Miyazaki that is certainly worth seeing for numerous reasons.
This film to me has a somewhat emotional impact. When I was young I loved watching the Pokémon series along with Card Captors and others and having been absent from such animation for many years, watching this film revives that love of careful and beautiful cartoon styling with an exuberant fantasy and imagination that is irreplaceable.
This was partly the reason I watched it but for a better reason reviewers had critically acclaimed this picture as a work of genius and it is easy to see why.
Pixar are the current global kings of animation seemingly unbeaten in box office records across the world. Creating stories revolving around real world issues but containing imagination adds to their appeal, none more so than Toy Story and Wall-E. Spirited Away follows a similar attraction, bringing in many traditions of its Japanese maker.
The film is a spirited fantasy that creates wonderful illusions of possibilities. There are brilliantly designed soot like spiders, a humungous Granny typed villain, pig parents, a gold given anything eating no faced monster and a floating train ride. The design is something otherworldly that can' be explained unless seen. However it is what these pictures and designs symbolise in the stories' context.
The greedy self obsessed parents, the contemplation of thoughts and a slowdown on the train, the impact of friendship against adversity and the manipulation of gold and other riches in a working environment. This is not just fancy showy art this is meaningful and picturesque entertainment.
Whilst the same could be said for Pixar this 2001 release has in my opinion one of the finest scores to grace an animation. The complete juxtaposition of music and moment may bring tears to your eyes. The train scene near the end is the best moment as signs fly by and the day turns into night and people move on, a heavenly scene of pure movie magic.
On first viewing I was astounded by the film's conformity to many ideologies such as magic, parenthood, slavery, love, lust, youth and manipulation. Come the final showdown there was a multitude of quick fired ideologies that mashed everything together and left the film hovering for the viewer's personal interpretation.
There are a few unanswered questions and a few eyebrows may rise and that's also part of the beauty as this, without a shadow of a doubt, contains all the necessary elements to entertain anyone of any age, truly brilliant.