Category: Spirited Away

A child of Miyazaki, the master of animation, Spirited Away is a work that has its own magic and uniqueness that fills the room whenever the film is on. One would be amazed to know that it was released in 2001 after tons of hard work and dedication. Fully created and directed by Miyazaki, the story is the main gem of the film, greatly surpassing all of the other elements of the industry despite the latter being great as well. The director’s talent to hypnotize his viewer and make the audience live through the story with its characters is something that millions try to reach yet only a few manage to pull off. This was the third project of Hayao that he was trying to create and only the Spirited Away saw the light and got the budget of $19 million while the other two projects failed and were dumped. The producers’ trust and patience resulted in one of the greatest pieces in the animation industry worldwide, let alone Japan.

Like many great authors, Miyazaki did not go far for inspiration, and took the young daughter of his friend as the prototype and built the whole story around her. The girl would pay a visit each summer and finally become the pillar of the story, narrative, and character design. Walt Disney Pictures were impressed by the development and the result. It did not take long before the whole bunch of legendary professionals such as John Lasseter, a loyal fan of the works of this Japanese master of animation. Every drop of sweat and each consecutive struggle to make Chihiro Ogino walk, speak and live have paid off. The success was massive, and the film grossed $289 million worldwide. It became the highest-grossing animated film in Japanese history with more than 30 billion yen collected.

The plot is the main highlight of the film. It is compared by many to Alice in Wonderland due to the setting and story logic. Spirited away follows the path of the unknown, unexplainable yet perfectly understandable pattern. The decisions that lack logic at first glance later become the only possible choice and only add to the immersion and the existing world within the film’s boundaries. The protagonist, Chihiro, travels through the land of spirits. Miyazaki brilliantly connects the uses of paradox and unorthodox decisions to make the viewer dive into the colors of a masterfully created environment and ask for more. As many other animation masterpieces created in Japan, Spirited Away has much more on the inside than highlighted in the film. Each major plot twist and consecutive conversation can be projected to the real world with visible connections to the folklore and social norms. Spirit world contains corrupt individuals, hatred towards yet unexplored and newly met and allegiance to the conservative views. This picture correlates with the world as we see it in our daily life yet is so distant that we can still get marveled by its beauty and fantasy.

The film reviews proved that low entry threshold is the thing for Spirited Away, without abandoning the methods of complex world and allusions. Critical acclaim was a natural consequence for the film, and the dominant majority adored Miyazaki’s work. General publicity showed the love through hundreds of millions of revenue, and biggest global animation companies were fighting for the rights to dub Spirited Away into their language.
This piece of art will give you the magical feeling of discovering something new and exciting while feeding you a well-timed portion of deep thoughts and negative environment for you to think about and make connections with the real world. It has the color and blinds with grayness, amazes with music and shocks with silence, all in due time. A work that truly deserves its master.