Be Sprited Away

Rating: 10/10 (23 October 2006)

People call Hiyao Miyazaki the Japanese Disney but his work puts him on a far higher plane and Spirited Away shows this. The film starts like a fairly typical take on Alice in Wonderland or Narnia. A modern day girl is bought into a fantasy world and has to find her way back. But Miyazaki takes it even further. His heroine, ten year old Chihiro is a typically modern girl, upset about moving house and afraid of her new life. But after her parents take a detour into a strange tunnel she finds herself trapped and worst of all, her parents have been turned into pigs.
Miyazaki's fantasy world is quite simply jaw dropping. Strange creatures, some drawn from Japanese mythology others just from Miyazaki's mind populate this world and the bathhouse where Chihiro has to work. Just the images stay in your mind long after the end credits have rolled, an endless landscape of water, the cherry blossom fields.
But it's not just the fantastic images that make this film one of the best. The characters are utterly compelling and it's easy to forget when watching them, particularly the evil witch Yubaba that they are just cartoons.
Ignore any negative comments about this movie, an academy award, several million Japanese and countless film critics can't be wrong. Probably the best animated film since the early days of Disney (before it was all about the money).