Jingyu - 2868 - Spirited Away

For the first time I watched Spirited Away was at around 6 years ago, at that time I was a junior high school student as the similar age as the character Chihiro in the movie, and I only thought Spirited Away was a touching and beautiful fairy tale. Recently, however, when I've watched this movie again after 6 years, I find how meaningful and powerful it is! Spirited Away is the case with real life, to be more than a fairy tale, it's also the snapshot of social phenomenon. The most valuable thing of the movie is that it reflects the very realistic problem, like bubble economy, environmental protection, social reality and so on, you could find every character in the movie has the certain group in real life. And I always wonder how the writer build such an appealing story with denotative meaning. The more times I watch the movie, the more I love this movie, especially the well organized spots and impressive characters.

From my personal view, the major themes of the movie shows that human nature get lost, and the process of regaining the self as well as the relationship between nature and human, and my feeling about the reason that causes human nature get lost is due to the endless desire. Because of the appetite Chihiro's parents were transformed into pigs, which made her being at a loss without anyone to rely on, but this precisely light her dormant power. The love spoiled on children usually will make them get lazy, and parents don't understand children will also make them feel distant about the world as spiritless Chihiro at first. From Chihiro to Sen there was a process of finding and improving herself, gradually we saw the bravery, kindness and perseverance on Sen. In addition, Chihiro helped the River Spirit wash off the filth on his body and return to himself; She helped No Face bring back all he had eaten and revert to the former self; She also helped Haku break the spell, remind his own name and switch back to himself. Finally, ten-year-old Chihiro uses her own wits and courage to escape from a nightmarish world, and she has successfully made a change from a protector to a savior.

The scenes of vomiting occurs many times in this movie that is simply purification, and what they regurgitated were human unclean things, like city refuse, endless greed... The destruction of nature was shown on the River Spirit that Miyazaki wants to evoke people's environmental protection concept. The blindly worship of money reflected human mistaken sense of values. The dialogue said, "There are only bad germs outside", "If I go outside, then I'll get sick", I suppose this is the Hayao Miyazaki's definition of human society.

About the character Chihiro's parents - At the beginning, Chihiro's parents showed they were indifferent to her, which could reveal there is a gap between the child and the parents. In reality, mostly, parents pay less attention to care their children 's feeling and neglect of understanding the children 's thought. Besides, parents always do what they feel is right and impose their wishes on their children. While Hayao Miyazaki made us know that sometimes children know better than their parents, at least Chihiro knows she shouldn't touch what are not hers. In real life there is someone who's always overconfident and lazy to think; Chihiro's parents are such kind of person, they didn't feel strange about the town and thought they could pay for the food by cash or credit card as well, money is not everything! The effect of their parents' conceit and greediness is they both had transformed into pigs and been up to chihiro to rescue them, which is a great satire. But just because of this, the girl had the opportunity to grow and learn by herself through the journey.

Talking about No Face - I really like this character, he's very cute, like a black bag or black shadow. In my view, No Face has held a kind of very special sentiment to Chihiro, because he was always silently standing several feet away from her and looking at her or following her. Moreover, the way I see it, No Face represents two kind of people in real life. First one is the nebbish. They live in the society with little attention and are always ignored by others, so a bit of help is enough to gain their appreciation. Just like the raining night Chihiro saw No Face standing outside all alone, then left a gate for him, such a little help had warmed his heart so that he helped her get lots of tonic & tools and tried to please her all the ways. Second one is just human. No Face as a innocent child gradually turned into an adult filled desire and greed, which shows us the process of transferring from human naturality to sociality. Nowadays, Technological developments has isolated people that human become more and more lonely, and people also long for love and care but fail to find the right way like No Face. Besides, when he had influenced by what he saw in Public Bathhouse, he found they all pursued as much money as possible so that he learnt to be with people by money, but in the end he's still so lonely. A person of purity had become a wicked person that it seems people step into the social forge might be defiled. Fortunately, Chihiro helped him out and made him turned back into the original.

Whether creating the characters' appearance or building the characters, Miyazaki skillfully images the charm of exaggeration of animation. Some tall, some short, and some huge, some small, those helped bring out the artistic effect.The modelling of Kamajii made the film more interesting and animative. Also Yobaba who's very cruel to the servants but really spoil her child that its extreme contrast mood made the film more dramatic and exaggerative, and she alternated between a fierce look and a very pleasant face, which creates the sense of humour and impressive power of animation.When her child showed up in amount of colorful pillows, that possesses a strong view for appreciation.

Public Bathhouse miniatures the society, there are Yobaba who was blinded by gain, avaricious employees, and also goodness people. Do you remember the incident that Yobaba didn't recognize her own flesh and blood when the baby had transformed into a mouse and said "What's with that ugly rat?" and money being uppermost in her mind, what a harsh reality it is.

I think name has the deep idea for everyone not only in this movie. Sen and Chihiro show respectively two kinds of different character, and the lost-to-find course. "When she takes your name, you'll forget the way back...","Yobaba takes people's names and controls them"...The name plays an really important part in the movie. What do names stand for? Name is the identity of one person. If someone forgets his name, he'll get lost, degenerate, and lose sight of himself. Don't forget the name!

Here are my favorite scenes:

It is shot from a high angle, which vividly showed from Chihiro's side Yobaba rush over.

It can make people cry that rouses a feeling of pity, but it's also a heartwarming scene.

Miyazaki likes to use the road, ocean, and train as the significance or metaphor. The great ocean stretches away to meet the sky, but we can't clearly see the horizon.

Where is the safe haven that belongs to me?

I can feel the stillness of this scene, very gentle.

Another moving scene.

Do you see the taenia shining? Meticulous design.

Spirited Away is a great draw, no wonder it topped the box office in Janpan for the time. Both the writer and director of this movie is Hayao Miyazaki who's a true artist in my mind, and Miyazaki's animation work and incredible painting ability have been aroused the public attention all the time. Through watching his composing, it will also make easier for us to understand Japan's nationality and the values well because of most works of him within Japanese elements. Another obbligato part are the sound and Joe Hisaishi's music that matched perfectly with the story line, particularly Hisaishi's evocative music I like it so much. It's worth mentioning that although Spirit Away is a 2D animation movie which can be made by computer, Miyazaki has been insisted to use old-fashioned method of hand drawing.

Here are some pictures of script:

I suppose Spirited Away will be Miyazaki's enduring masterpiece.

Reference:
Interview: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/spirited_away_miyazaki
English script: http://www.totoroclub.net/forum/viewthread.php?tid=12120
Storyboard pictures: http://www.chinavid.com/academic/2008-4-17/084174132788_32.htm