spoilers...

Poor Chihiro. First her parents drag her into an other-dimensional world, then they turn into pigs, leaving her to figure out how to save them and get back to the human world - a pretty awesome task for a little girl. This is the plot of Spirited Away, which takes place in a day spa (or more accurately, night spa) for the Japanese gods and spirits.

This release of the Japanese film Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (presented by Walt Disney studios) is an English dub, which is a major no-no in many anime purist circles. But, 13-yr-old Daveigh Chase (the little sister in Donnie Darko and Lilo in Lilo & Stitch) plays Chihiro and does a fine job; between her and the great animation, you can feel what's going on in the story.

The animation itself is pretty impressive. I caught myself more than once wondering at the amount of work that went into it. Something as seemingly simple as running up a flight of stairs would likely have been much easier to draw running straight along a street. It's obvious Hayao Miyazaki has a great love for his work. If you're not an anime fan and you recognize that name, it may be because you're familiar one of his works previously released in the States: Princess Mononoke. Miyazaki's artistic side also lends to drawing manga (for those of you not in the know, anime refers to Japanese animation, manga refers to Japanese comics - it took me forever to figure out that distinction). But I digress...

Spirited Away starts out strong, but then, I've always like stories where normal people are thrown into fantastic places with otherworldly characters. Chihiro has an intriguing series of adventures on the way to figuring out how to save her parents. Unfortunately, as we get toward the end of the second act, the story begins to falter and gets somewhat sappy. This may have been due to something lost in the translation, but mostly seems just to be a problem with the story. At this point there's almost the feeling that someone else has taken the helm and is writing a different sort of tale.

The Academy gave Spirited Away the Oscar for Best Animated Film (it also won Best Film at the 2001 Japanese Academy Awards and is currently the all-time highest grossing movie in Japan, beating Titanic and everything else). I'll have to voice my dissent here, though I'll obviously have my detractors, saying that while it's an enjoyable movie, it wasn't anything outstanding.

			See it if you're into anime and English dubs don't bother you, or if you enjoy Alice-in-Wonderland style alternate reality stories. Don't see it if anime isn't your thing, if you're firmly trenched in this reality, if you're a purist and won't watch anime without the original Japanese dialogue with English subtitles, or if you just have a problem with Disney in general. (Of course, if you rent the DVD, you'll have the option to watch the movie in the original Japanese - the theater I just saw it in didn't give me that option.)

© 2003 Jim Manchester

Originally posted to Reel People, 4/25/03