Incorporation of Tradtional values for a better modern Japan

Rating: 10/10 (31 May 2007)

A girl is traveling with her parent to their new home when they come across an old gate and cross over into a world populated by spirits. She loses her parents and must pass three tests in order to save them.
The structure of the movie is that of a Modern Japanese Narrative with deep Traditional Japanese elements and symbolism. The story is told from multiple perspectives that flow smoothly throughout the film. The is a time discontinuity which begins at the moment the family passes through the gated tunnel until they return to their car at the end of the movie. The movie is based on the Japanese religion of Shinto which believes there are spirits in all things, from organic to inorganic, natural and manned. All of the spirits that the main character Chihiro encounters are such spirits.
The movie is based on the conflict between the traditional values of Japan with the modern values of Japan. It is clear that Miyazaki believes that modern Japanese society is selfish, greedy, and polluted. He believes that the only way to correct these problems is by incorporating the traditional values of: politeness/manners, hard work and dedication, helping others /self-sacrifice without personal gain, and finally, love and devotion to friends and family.
These three values are established throughout the movie in simple life lessons. The first of the three values is a lesson on being hardworking and steadfast by completely what you start. She picks up a large piece of coal, which he can barely carry due to its weight, and drop it into the broiler. Next, was cleaning the river spirit that stank to high heaven from the pollution of the modern world, and the job of freeing her parents, which she set out to do at the beginning of the movie, for example.
The second value that she learns is politeness/manners. She learns to thank those who have helped her along the way by bowing and giving thanks. She does this with the broiler man that helped her get her foot in the door in getting a job at the bathhouse and Jin for teaching her everything she needs to know for her job and for helping her out when he was in trouble, to name a few.
The third value, helping other/self-sacrifice, is most evident in Chihiro's desire to save the life of Haiku, the dragon, even though she knows she may get hurt. She climbs the side of the bathhouse, gives half of her plum, a gift, to help heal him, and travels on a long journey to save his life.
The three tests given to Chihiro, by Yubaba, deal with overcoming the pollution, greed, and selfishness of the modern world, which are all in the form of monsters or beasts. The first monster is a monster that has been corrupted by the pollution of the modern world. The monster is filled with garbage, discarded objects and industrial waste. Chihiro rids the monster of the pollution and he is cleaned and become whole, as things should be. The second monster is a monster of greed. The monster, No Face, offers Chihiro many bath tokens far more than she needs (During the cleansing of the first monster, she had a bucketful but only used what she needed) and offers her lots of gold, which she declines. No Face goes crazy from being in the bathhouse (many things of the modern world) and leads him away into the rural land around the bath house, which is clean and pure and beautiful (aka traditional values). The final test comes when Chihiro has to figure out which of the beastly pigs are her parents. Because she has learned to love her parents and her friends unconditionally, she has renewed/cleaned sight and she passes the test by seeing that none of the pigs were her parents.
In the end, she learns all of the traditional values that have been lost in Modern Japan and becomes a better and stronger person because of them. She takes that knowledge and the values she learned and incorporates it into herself then travels away from tradition and enters the modern world. (She doesn't lose the traditional values; they simply became a part of her. Like reading, you don't think about the process of reading, you just read.