Beautifully animated story with good characters and fantastic story of love and friendship

Rating: Null/10 (21 September 2003)

While on their way to their new house in a new town, Chihiro and her parents take a short cut down a side road and come to a dead end with a dark passage way in a wall. Despite her fears, Chihiro goes with her parents to see where it leads. They come out in open space where they find what looks like an abandoned theme park. Chihiro's parents find a stall with lots of food prepared and start to eat while Chihiro refuses and goes to investigate a working bath house. As it suddenly gets dark she goes back to her parents to find they have been turned into pigs and suddenly shadows draw over the stalls. Chihiro hides with the help of a boy called Haku. He helps her to stay in the bathhouse by getting her a job (as dictated by Yubaba) and she settles into the resort for Japan's gods and spirits. However she still must work out a way of getting her parents back before they grow fat and are eaten.
The first I had heard of this film was when it won the Oscar (sadly this was the one part of my combination bet that I had got wrong and hence won nothing). Since then the film has had world-wide promotion and arrived in the UK several years after it had first been shown. Despite the worrying `Walt Disney' legend at the front of the credits, this is very much a Miyazaki film and the mouse has not turned it into something else. My second worry was that the American team involved in the version I saw would bring out sarcasm in the same way as they (Lasseter) does in things like Monsters Inc etc. I enjoy that style of humour but `Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi' was much better than just that.
The plot involves the quest to recover Chihiro's parents from a spell that made them pigs, but the world in which the film is set is what makes it so enjoyable. The world is imaginative and filled with all sorts of characters. Chihiro's journey explores themes of understanding, trust and friendship  all around the central quest, and in this way it is good that some parents I know have been taking their kids to see this film even if it isn't tied into a Happy Meal marketing campaign. The characters are all pretty well developed and are interesting. Chihiro is afraid but brings bravery from inside herself, Haku is a mystery but appears trustworthy, the mysterious noface could be a friend or foe. What the film doesn't have is characters who do nothing  they all drive the story forward or provide the comic relief in some way.
The American cast do good jobs dubbing the characters. Usually dubbed films are so poor that I always seek out subtitles, however here the job was as it were meant. Chase is very good in one of her two Oscar nominated films that year and Mardsen has much more to do than in the X-Men films! Support voices are all good and involve plenty of recognisable voices such as Chiklis, Holly, Ratzenberger and Stiers.
The film is a lot more accessible than much anime  sure there are still monsters and spirits but there are no major battles and way out visuals to deal with, kids can watch this (and should). In fact I did quite like the simplicity of the tale. Whereas kids movies recently tend towards the more sarcastic, cruel humour as much for adults, here the film is more about spirit (no pun) and moral courage. It is also worth noting that, although there is magic, this is not some spectacle film like Harry Potter  Chihiro uses her brain and her heart to deal with things, not spells.
The animation is fantastic  while CGI has been used, it never feels as totally computerised as Monster Inc etc does. This isn't BETTER because it was hand drawn but it does fell a lot warmer and a lot more recognisable in terms of style. The use of both techniques gives much to the look of the film. As always the world and the characters come to life on the screen and are fantastic, creepy and beautiful all at once.
I don't mean to gush but I did enjoy this film for all it's simplistic plotting. The quest is a straightforward plot device and would be a problem if that's all this film had to offer. Happily the central story is supported by characters who are wonderfully drawn (both animated and developed) and set in a world that is visually impressive and imaginative. I looked at my watch and wondered where two hours had gone.