Release Date (US): September 20, 2002
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Starring: Daveigh Chase, Jason Marsden, Suzanne Pleshette, Susan Egan, Lauren Holly, Michael Chiklis, David Ogden Stiers, John Ratzengerber, Tara Strong
Favorite quote: “Once you’ve met someone you never really forget them. It just takes a while for your memories to return.”– Zeniba
Fourteen years ago, I took my then-seven-year-old son to watch a movie. It was an impulse watch; I had never heard of the movie. But it was anime, a genre that I loved, and my son was devouring as much of the genre as I and Toonami on Cartoon Network could feed him. I walked him into the theater that day, unsure what I was going to see. Two hours later, we walked out, completely awestruck.
That was his first time experiencing the absolute magic that is Studio Ghibli and its auteur director, Hayao Miyazaki. It was not my first experience with them; I had already seen Princess Mononoke. But I was similarly amazed.
Flashback to present day, and I was taking my daughter to see the same movie. It was a special 15th Anniversary screening. She had already seen the movie, of course, but she wanted to see it on the big screen anyway. I spent two hours watching the same movie as I had seen with my son fourteen years earlier. The magic was still the same. My daughter, fifteen years old, walked out with the same smile my son, age seven at the time, had. I walked out with a different smile, one that only comes with experiencing the same thing twice with the most important people in your life.
The circle was complete. They both experienced the same movie in different ways, yet still walked out with the same smile. And I smiled the same, in different ways.
The movie was, of course, Spirited Away. The United States didn’t get to see the movie until a year after its release in Japan, but its impact was felt even so. It won dozens of awards, including an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2003.
And it is the strangest movie I have ever loved.
The movie stars Chihiro (Daveigh Chase), a child upset with having to move to a new place. She’s a bit of a spoiled brat and quite sheltered. While driving to their new home, her father (Michael Chiklis) and mother (Lauren Holly) end up going through a forest path that leads to a seemingly abandoned amusement park. Abandoned, that is, except for a stand that had a huge feast laid out. Chihiro’s parents, unassumingly, begin to chow down on the feast and get turned into pigs. Now she is alone, wandering through a strange place that gets even stranger as day turns into night. The remainder of the movie focuses on Chihiro making sense of this strange world and trying to find a way to restore her parents and escape.
Chihiro’s journey from that point forward is one of discovery, maturity, and absolute weirdness. No lie, I spent the entirety of my first viewing wondering what the absolute hell was going on, and wondering why I enjoyed it so much.
My son, all of seven years of age, was dumbstruck with the beauty and oddity of what was presented to him. My daughter, a more robust 15, was similarly transfixed. I am not sure if they could process it all, but I sure as shit couldn’t!
From the moment Chihiro’s parents are turned to swine until the end, the film is a never-ending cycle of WTF-ery! You are witness to a strange world where things make sense to everyone but you. You are introduced to Haku (Jason Masden) early on, and he is sympathetic to Chihiro’s plight. Soon enough, you see Kamaji (David Ogden Stiers) and Lin (Susan Egan), characters equally sympathetic to Chihiro. But the environment and its cast will have most adults scratching their heads. Well, at least I think so.
Soon enough, Chihiro meets her main foil, Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette, also the voice of her twin sister, Zeniba). Although Yubaba is nasty at first, you soon see even she has a soft spot. Every character is Spirited Away, whether sympathetic or malevolent, has a soft side. I think that the beauty of this movie lies in the fact that no one is truly evil or just plain bad. Even the nastiest individual in this story is good on the inside.
From the moment Chihiro’s parents are turned to swine, I gave up trying to understand the movie. Maybe I was too old or too cynical to get it. The story seemed nonsensical to me for large swaths of the movie. But I was still transfixed, taking in every weird, incredulous scene with the glee of a child. I actually smiled a few times through my first and last viewing.
The continuity was all over the place. I didn’t care. I was mesmerized by what I saw.
The credit for the odd witchcraft that drew me in belongs to Miyazaki-san and Studio Ghibli, absolute masters of emotion in animation. Though I had experienced the studio’s magic prior with Princess Mononoke, I did not truly appreciate their power until much later.
Flash back again to 2004. One of my dearest friends gave me a shit-ton of VHS tapes of kids’ movies. She needed to get rid of stuff, and I, being the packrat that I am, obliged by accepting the stuff. There were tons of movies I thought my daughter would love, movies that my son had loved before. Flubber. Paulie. Tons of Disney movies. I thought she was set through her teenage years with that bounty!
Turns out, she only cared about one movie. Out of over 40 quality children’s flicks, she clung to one and only one. It was My Neighbor Totoro. It was a movie I had never heard of but became intimately familiar with.
My Neighbor Totoro is a Studio Ghibli film, directed by Miyazaki-san. The film is so iconic, the titular character is part of their logo. She still loves that movie; I love the fact I can share it with her.
That is the main draw about Spirited Away and all of Miyazaki-san’s works; you don’t just watch them, you share them. His movies are not just movies; they’re experiences best shared with those that are young at heart. As nonsensical as their movies are, they tug at heart strings that you never knew you had. Their movies are emotional experiences that can’t be explained, just experienced.
I may be getting overly sappy when describing Spirited Away, but speaking of the movie can only be emotional. It’s real hard to talk about the movie and not describe what was felt through the viewing.
Of course, I have a more emotional perspective of Spirited Away. I was able to see it in a theater with my son and my daughter, fourteen years apart. Their enjoyment, though vastly different, resonates with me. The fact that a movie can touch the hearts of my children – the most important people in my life – despite time or age is special to me. The fact that it touches me, too, makes me love the movie even more.
I may still wonder what the hell happened in Spirited Away, but I will love the movie until the end of time. It is a great movie, and it is a great movie to connect with those you care about the most.
It’s still a strange movie, tho!
