Spirited Away

As most of you probably already know, Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away is a beautiful animated movie about a ten-year old spoiled little brat of rich parents and her journey into the realm of ghosts and spirits in search of herself. The pouty girl, Chihiro, and her parents become lost while driving with their car through the woods. When they stop the car, and walk through a dark tunnel, they find themselves at an abandoned amusement park. In this empty ghost town, her father finds a sumptuous buffet and her parents eat all they can until they turn into pigs. Whiny Chihiro finds help from a little boy, Haku, who indicates they have met before. They are now in the world of ghosts. Haku smuggles her into a bathhouse for the gods, worked by spirits, run by the witch Yubaba, and he tells Chihiro to make sure she finds employment there until he comes back to rescue her. In the bathhouse, the clumsy girl gradually learns to become resourceful, help the spirits and make friends under straining circumstances. The story unfolds against a backdrop of fantastic, well-nigh psychedelic dream pastel colors. This fairy tale for grown-up kids is reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, but this Cricket was also reminded of Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Terry Gilliam’s Brazil – if that makes sense.

Chihiro’s journey represents a quest for moral individuality in a world inhabited by faceless spirits, nameless ghosts, voiceless soot sprites, wicked witches, dangerous dragons and stink gods, all with their own absurd rules. Underneath the girl’s rite-of-passage there is another story: a social critique of sorts. The abandoned amusement park hints at the Japanese economic bubble of the late-twentieth century, while the buildings in the park, particularly the bathhouse of the gods, hark back to the Meji Restoration. The rich and young of the twenty-first century have lost their respect for tradition, have lost their connection with their past – filled with magical mystery. This commentary on modernity subtly runs throughout the film: Chihiro’s parents gorge themselves on food so much they turn into pigs; the river-god is mistaken for a stink-god, because he is covered in waste, and proceeds to vomit all the trash that humans dump into the river; the faceless spirit bribes everyone at the bathhouse with his gold, but makes no friends save the little heroine – and he, too, starts vomiting when Chihiro asks him if he has no home to return to. The gorging, bribing, and vomiting are obvious allusions to the ills of modern consumerism.

The beauty is that Miyazaki succeeds in keeping his fairy tale filled with ambiguity – nothing is what it seems: a stink-god turns out to be a river-god, parents turn into pigs, a dangerous dragon turns out to be Haku in disguise, an enormous baby turns into a mouse, weird creatures turn out to become friends, a piece of flying paper turns into a witch, a threatening faceless spirits turns out to be a lonely soul; what seemed frightfully evil turns out to be good and friendly. Such moral ambivalence keeps this film from becoming standard Disney fare. Through the Looking Glass of Miyazaki, there is good in all creatures, but there is also evil lurking everywhere. If we overcome our fears, trust our instinct, return to our innocence, find our inner selves and retain our individual moral uprightness, we can face reality and live meaningful lives. If somehow you have missed Spirited Away – like your Cricket did – it might be time to catch up and enjoy this wonderful movie.