Spirited Away: Movie & DVD Review 2001

(Originally published 2001)

"Spirited Away," the new film from Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki ("Princess Mononoke," "My Neighbor Totoro"), is an animated "Alice in Wonderland" and "Wizard of Oz" for a new generation.

Thanks to its inclusion on dozens of critics’ top 10 lists and the recent awards it has won--Best Animated Feature by the Broadcast Film Critics Association, Top Animated Film by the National Board of Review, co-winner of the Golden Bear for Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival, among others--the film is finally generating a buzz here in the States.

Its U.S. distributor, Disney, is reaching out to American audiences by touting the film as the most successful movie ever to be released in Japan, earning a record-breaking $234 million in that country alone while also, in the process, sinking "Titanic" as Japan's previous box-office champ.

As written by Miyazaki, "Spirited Away" is animation as art. It lives up to its title, spiriting audiences away with an imagination that never feels restricted by the pat limitations of the Hollywood machine because, frankly, the Hollywood machine wasn’t allowed to touch it until it was ready to be dubbed into English.

Instead, the hands at work here are Miyazaki's, whose beautifully detailed animation is compelling in ways that are at once powerful and poetic, creating a quirky atmosphere and surreal mood that will remind some of the Brothers Grimm.

The film follows Chihiro (voice of "Lilo & Stitch’s" Daveigh Chase), a sullen 10-year-old girl who, as the film begins, is unhappily moving to a new house with her parents.

When her father decides to take a shortcut and swings off the main thoroughfare, he unwittingly leads them down a long, winding road, at the end of which is a dark tunnel protected by a stone god.

Naturally, curiosity pulls everyone out of the car and into that tunnel, which stretches into nothingness before opening to reveal a fantastic new world, one that initially seems deserted until nighttime falls, when tired spirits seeking a little relaxation and fun arrive en masse and Chihiro’s parents are inexplicably turned into two huge, grunting hogs.

Without giving too much away, the crux of Chihiro’s conundrum goes like this: If she’s to help her parents save face--quite literally, in this case--and return to human form so they all can go home, she must dig deep and find the key to her own individuality while also defeating the vicious Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette), a crazed bathhouse queen determined to slaughter Chihiro’s parents if she doesn’t pass a series of tests.

What ensues is surprisingly complex, emotional and deceptive, saying more in its contemplative moments of silence than most of today's predictable animated movies say with their legions of talking, singing animals. The movie is filled with action, some of which might be too scary for younger children, but for older kids and their parents, "Spirited Away" is a smart film that doesn’t condescend.

Grade: A