Only The Youth Can Save Us

Rating: 9/10 (25 May 2007)

The best way to describe this movie is witty. It's a more subtle way of telling the youth they're the only ones of today who can put society back in a place that is moral and without greed or modern filth. From the beautiful images, to the characters' voices, to the message behind the entire movie, "Spirited Away" is a way of saying what many want to say about the only way to save tradition.
Before I go any further, I have to say when I started watching the movie I was unimpressed by the animation that had a sort of hazy look to it, and when the scene of Chihiro running through the flowers came, I was confused because the animation of the flowers looked so much better than most other scenes in the movie. Then it made perfect sense when I found out it was all hand-painted, which made the movie so much more respectable.
Aside from the beautiful paintings, the voices matched well with the characters. Chihiro is portrayed as bratty at first, because that is what she was supposed to be, and the parents' voices were sort of dumb and rude sounding, especially towards Chihiro. Anyone who can't even help his or her own daughter across the water deserves to be portrayed as ignorant and crude. I can't think of any decent person who wouldn't help even a stranger's kid across the rocks in the water. But after all, Miyazaki is saying that tradition has become lost in today's society, and only the youth can save it. The young may be ignorant, but we're still being educated, and because we haven't been set in our ways or stubborn for many years, we can still appreciate, and take in, what we're being taught. The longer you go on with ignorance, the harder it becomes to be liberated. This becomes Miyazaki's point when Chihiro goes through everything she went through, for her parents to still be ignorant in the end. Miyazaki's point is also that maybe the youth are the only ones who can save society from modern ignorance because we're the only ones who can deal with it properly. To become one with tradition, and really understand it, you can't fight with it, and you can't control it. The only thing you can do is go along with it, and learn, which is made apparent in the way Chihiro handles No-Face. However, what will always remain with Chihiro is her new sense of tradition and respect. The purple shining hair band (which I found to be the most witty symbol in the whole movie) lets you know that there is hope for the youth yet, because tradition is there to watch over, and teach those who want to be taught.
Although the hair band leaves you with an optimistic future, and hope for the youth to make things right, I don't know if I can recommend this for an American audience. To appreciate the movie, you have to separate what you like from the point the director is trying to make about tradition (which doesn't want water gods kissing humans, so you'll have to get over it). The spirit of the movie is very Taoist, and even Buddhist, so keep in mind that strict rules over who can do what in hierarchy is supposed to be negative, as well as being ignorant (like the parents), and forcing what you can't control.