MIYAZAKI'S SPIRITED AWAY
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Hayao Miyazaki gives us a masterpiece of fantasy in the anime that is as timeless as Carroll's Alice stories and enjoyable for just as wide an audience. This film may even trump THE LORD OF THE RINGS for imagination. Rating: 8 (0 to 10), low +3 (-4 to +4)
Hayao Miyazaki, Japan's premier anime director, created magical worlds (mostly) of his own in children's fantasies like MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO, KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE, and PRINCESS MONONOKE. SPIRITED AWAY is an uninspired title for a long but terrifically imaginative fantasy. SPIRITED incorporates elements of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, Japanese folklore, and Miyazaki's own strange imagination, all whipped together in an enchanting souffle.
Chihiro is moving to a new house and school with her parents. She has some natural worries about what it and her school will be like. But on the way her parents get lost on a drive through nearby woods and find some odd buildings of strange architecture. Exploring them they find a gateway to a strange empty set of strange buildings, perhaps a theme park. Soon Chihiro's parents have gotten themselves into trouble that even they do not realize and Chihiro is on her own to explore this strange and wondrous new world that they have inadvertently passed into. From this point the story gets stranger and more complex. It involves Japanese spirits, strange food, a guide frog, a real spider-man, and a castle full of wonders in a sort of Disneyland of the spirits. This world is as mystifying and with its own strange logic as Alice's Wonderland. Miyazaki seems to have an inexhaustible supply of ideas to fill the screen and to fill screen time. To get everything in he has made this a longish film for children, but one where they will not be bored. There is always something new and strange being introduced.
SPIRITED AWAY is a complex fantasy that should appeal to adults in much the same way Carroll's Alice stories do. For its creativity I rate it an 8 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +3 on the -4 to +4 scale. [-mrl]
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Copyright 2002 Mark R. Leeper
========== X-RAMR-ID: 32894 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 785874 X-RT-TitleID: 1116064 X-RT-AuthorID: 1309 X-RT-RatingText: 8/10
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews