Saturday, May 21, 2011

Spirited Away



"Spirited Away" by Hayao Miyazaki is one my favorite movies that I watch whenever I want to just relax and be free from all the stress. I think it is one of the very few animation movies that can be watched by a wide range of audience, but still contain a lot of significant, deep meanings within the context and plot of the movies. Just to tell you a little bit about the story, a ten-year old girl, Chihiro, accidentally gets to a mysterious place where monsters and spirits live while exploring a new place with her parents. To return her parents into humans (while exploring the place, they turn into pigs because they eat the foods of the mysterious place), Chihiro gets a new name, Sen, to work in the bathhouse of Yubaba with a lot of help from Haku. Overall, I think the movie portrays Chihiro's transition from childhood from adulthood by showing her entering the new, mysterious world. When she starts working at Yubaba's bathhouse, she loses of name, which represents her childhood; then, she gets a new name for her adulthood to start almost a new life with full responsibilities for herself and also for people around her, such as her parents. The vivid images and detailed settings of the movie makes me fall deeper and deeper into the movie as I watch "Spirited Away". There is a Disney version of the movie, but I personally think that the original Japanese version of the film is better with the Japanese voices that make the story sound more realistic for some reason.