:: Venting Insanity ::

:: Wednesday, July 09, 2003 ::

movie review
Today, I watched Hiyao Miazaki's Spirited Away. It's a story about a 10-year-old girl, Chihiro, who's moving to a new town. She's rather depressed, having left her best friend behind, and doesn't like the idea of having to face an entirely new school. She's also a bit of a baby about things, whining when she doesn't get her way, afraid of anything that looks weird, stuff like that. Her father takes a wrong turn on their trip towards their new home and they end up lost in an old abandoned amusement park. When a strange spell leaves piles of enchanted food out to eat, her parents, who partake in the food, are turned into pigs. Chihiro finds herself dragged unwillingly into the spirit realm, and has to find a way to save them before they're eaten by the spirits.

Once you get past the whining from the girl, it's not a bad movie. Some parts are extremely strange, and the drawing style is extremely similar to Kiki's Delivery Service and Princess Mononoke. There's plenty of odd looking characters, including the Radish Spirit, who looks like a sumo wrestler that needs a bra. The storyline gets a bit odd at times, but that may be because of cultural differences. There's a lot of ancient Japanese culture in this movie, and it will definitely be hard for children unfamiliar with it to understand.

On the upside, I did enjoy the animation and, despite some of their strangeness, most of the characters were pretty likable. Even Chihiro begins to grow on you as her temperament changes through the movie. She definitely goes through a period of personal growth in this movie, spending approximately a week without her parents to guide her and support her, doing hard bath house drudgery work, and still trying to find a way to rescue her parents without the domineering bath house owner figuring out what she's doing.

While I'm glad I didn't spend the money to see it in theatres, I'm glad I did see it after all. It wasn't a waste of my time.