Brilliant beyond expectations of glory

Rating: 10/10 (3 March 2005)

NOTE.. THERE MAY BE SPOILERS.. I AM NOT TRYING TO RUIN ANYTHING FOR ANYONE, BUT A THOROUGH REVIEW OF THIS MOVIE MUST NECESSARILY CONTAIN SOME SPOILERS.. IT IS HOPED THAT YOU HAVE ALREADY SEEN THE MOVIE, BUT IF YOU HAVE NOT, YOU MAY WISH TO JUST TAKE EVERYONE'S WORD FOR THE FACT THAT IT IS BRILLIANT AND NOT READ ANY FURTHER FOR NOW.
Miyazaki is a genius and a true creator of Masterworks. "Sen and Chihiro's Spiriting Away" is a perfect example of that genius, subtle and very powerful messages couched in enjoyable and visually beautiful form. One thing: Please don't use the incorrect Americanized title.. it removes a key issue from the movie, that of Duality, and Miyazaki wanted it there, or he WOULDN'T have titled it that way in the first place. One more thing: Watching the dub ruins the movie. If you want Disneyesque storytelling without content, watch the dub. If you want Miyazaki's movie, watch it in the original with subtitles, please..
Miyazaki holds the same views in all of his work.. ecology is always at the forefront.. as it was in "Sen and Chihiro's Spiriting Away".
Spirited Away (for short) is important because it is the DUALITY that is at the core of the movie.. Duality.. Sameness.. what it is to be empty and how the hunger of emptiness can come to become an all encompassing NEED to "swallow" all that is around one.. That is saying something very significant about us. Miyazaki said that there "is a little of No-Face in us all" -- and that aspect of us, that "No-Face" with its hunger and need.. must find resolution. In Spirited Away, it was found through Zenobia, Yubaba's twin sister.. who gave No-Face the "place" he needed.. who gave that need and hunger that IS no-face, surcease, peace, finally.
Greed is obvious, human greed, in simple aspects of the movie.. Chihiro's parents acting like "pigs" and in so, BECOMING pigs themselves. That's not overly subtle (although many miss it and thing it just a bit of humor), but it is powerful... "be so, and you will become so". Take what is not yours to take, and your punishment will be swift and unyielding.
This carries over the environment as well.. and ties in nicely with two other factors.. the "stink spirit" which was NO STINK SPIRIT AT ALL.. but a powerful RIVER GOD.. who was so full of POLLUTION that he'd turned from something powerful and beautiful to a lumbering, stinking, barely able to move, thing of filth. That's a powerful image.
When he is "cleansed" (by the small and innocent Chihiro who has done nothing wrong -- she is the innocent (yes, she's spoiled and a bit surly at the start, but she grows quickly. Painfully at times, but quickly.. almost losing her identity (again the duality theme.. She is both Sen AND she is Chihiro.. that's why the Japanese title referred to them BOTH as being "Spirited Away".
When the River God is cleansed, you see what he REALLY is.. and he flies away, leaving Sen (for she is Sen at that time) a gift... a rare and powerful gift.
Then we look at Haku.. Who, in the scheme of duality has LOST his other side, his true and other self.. you may recall that he was described as having changed and since he become Yubaba's apprentice, he has become "more and more pale and steely-faced" -- in other words, losing more and more of "himself" -- and yet, Yubaba is willing to simply discard him once he is bleeding and dying and "of no further use to her"... but Sen/Chihiro WON'T let him die.
Through the power of love, she brings him back -- only a love so strong could have saved him from the poisonous spell that was on the seal he stole from Yubaba's twin sister, Zenobia. But she over-rules that spell with her love, determination, and with the medicine, half of which she gave to No-Face to save HIM, and the other half of which she forces into Haku, to save HIM.. leaving her nothing to save her parents, but in the balance of "whose need is greatest right NOW" she acts correctly.
Saving Haku.. and then helping him recover his name (and saving him in a more profound way by FREEING him.. as he freed her by giving her back her clothes and her card with her name on it.. she had almost lost herself at that point.. she'd forgotten her name.. results in him saving her as well.. They save each other.
But WHY does Haku need saving? Because his river WAS FILLED IN. More Ecology.. we destroy, we pollute, we are GREEDY.. and the consequences are dire. Haku no longer has his river... the River God no longer can be clean due to our pollution.. and our greed turns Chihiro's parents into, LITERALLY, pigs..
We *are* the pigs. We are greedy, we destroy, we pollute, we even "stink" (remember the references to Sen as "smelling" bad and no one willing to work with her because of her human "stink"? That's very much to the point.. we stink because the things we do literally STINK.. we turn to black everything we touch.
Miyazaki's message of duality, and ecology and salvation is very potent in Spirited Away... it's a very serious movie cloaked in the beautiful anime that makes watching it a pleasurable experience.. but if we just skim the surface and don't think about what is being said, we are as clueless and stupid as the parents who turn *themselves* into pigs.
That too is a subtle message.. "miss the point, and you're doomed to repeat it". And turn yourselves into pigs.. or worse yet, remain as pigs.