One of the best films ever made!

Rating: 10/10 (17 June 2010)

Spirited Away is a totally unique celebration of friendship, love, and learning responsibility. Beautiful animation and a superb score supplement a fantastic story. A young girl gets trapped in a world of spirits and she has adventures. It's a bit like a Japanese Alice In Wonderland. What cannot be explained so easily is the depth of feeling to this film. The world of the film contains so many eccentricities small and large. Motifs are carried through here and there, woven throughout. Characters come and go and switch and change. The atmosphere shifts and the feelings created ebb and flow. How can it make me feel so exuberant and sad? Why am I so nostalgic for something I cannot name? This movie is the rush of life as an adventureÂ…the people you touch becoming friends and then leaving suddenly. It is the forgotten moments of childhood shimmering through the haze of adulthood. It is the journey of maturing that we all must take. We are the masters and authors of our own life, but damn, it is the people in it that make it worth mastering. I am always thrilled to remember that a Japanese "children's" film illustrates this so subtly and elegantly.