Spirited Away review: Sending Mixed Signals

Rating: 8/10 (2 August 2005)

In Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki creates a color-saturated world filled with interesting characters, magical creatures. The colors in the movie are stunning in their variety. The movie's animator has an interesting way of showing light and shadow, making it seem more cinematic than cartoonish, and Miyasaki shows a great attention to detail in every image he creates. The movie centers on Chihiro, who is a whiny, sullen girl whose family is moving. Chihiro does not want to move, and she makes her opinions well-known. Her whining does not stop when her father decides to take a shortcut to their new home and encounters what he believes to be an abandoned theme park, which is really a bathhouse for spirits to get away to. Chihiro is essentially orphaned in the spirit world when her parents partake of some food that's been left out in preparation for the ghostly guests, and the parents' greed turns them, quite literally, into pigs. It is interesting that Chihiro is the one who warns her family to not go into this seemingly abandoned place and to not eat the food because the viewer believes that Chihiro is just being surly and childish, when really it appears that she has had some special insight (another image of the child as seer). She has not been turned into a pig, and it is her quick thinking and the help of a stranger that just might help her family get out of the mess they have fallen into. Chihiro must then grow up quickly, start becoming more courageous, showing strength and determination. The movie seems to be imparting some very specific lessons to its viewers. Indeed, there is a big focus on manners, "Aren't' you even going to knock? You're the most pathetic girl I've ever seen" is one of the lines uttered, and "Anyone can see you are a lazy, spoiled brat with no manners," is another telling piece of dialogue. Chihiro is constantly being reminded to say "yes, ma'am" and "no, ma'am." Additionally, Chihiro's gluttonous parents get turned into pigs for their mistakes. Also, greedy people get eaten by the dark spirit that crashes the bath house. The movie, however, does seem to send somewhat of a mixed message because Chihiro appears to be bratty when she complains that her parents shouldn't stop when they do, and yet she is right that they shouldn't have trespassed and that they should have stayed away from food that wasn't meant for them. On the other hand, through her experiences in the spirit world, she matures, becoming more self-sufficient, empathetic, and responsible. She is only able to achieve these great human characteristics because her parents have failed to follow the very codes the movie seems to be promoting, like respect and restraint.