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Spirited Away



Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)

Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Writer: Hayao Miyazaki
Voice Actors: Daveigh Chase, Suzanne Pleshette, Miyu Irino
Genre: Animation, Adventure
Country: Japan

Synopsis
: An unhappy 10 year old girl moves with her family to the suburbs. She's lazy and uncaring...During a wrong way turn onto an abandoned country road, the family gets out of their car and walks down a long tunnel, and into a world ruled by spirit beings...where humans if caught trespassing are changed into animals.


Review
: I really enjoyed this! I watched the English audio version, there is also the original Japanese language version with subtitles. I connected to this film right from the start.

What I loved about Spirited Away was that it's so richly detailed with wonderfully interesting spirit characters. The story both written and directed by Miyazaki excels in 'world building' much like Ridley Scott did in Blade Runner. We're treated to a uniquely different world with its on set of rules and traditions. And we're showing many aspects of it, from the deep bowels where coal is stoked into the fires by little dust creatures to the upper world of the bath house which is richly appointed with it's own characters and ways of doing things.

The bath house was immense like some castle labyrinth, I want to go there! Each room had it's own interesting design, every time we enter a new room there's something fascinating to see. In some ways this reminded me of the Alice in Wonderland, stories with a new adventure at every turn!

I loved that the animators understood the relationship between lighting and color gradients. Much care was given to making the film look real and three dimensional. I was impressed that cinematography camera angles were used. We get low angle and overhand shots, fly by shots and more. Just like a well made live action film, Spirited Away has amazing cinematography, lighting and sets.

Of course the star of the Spirited Away is the little girl who must cope with insurmountable odds to save the day. She seems real, with real emotions, so I cared about her plight. This was a very enjoyable film to watch.