SPIRITED AWAY A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 2002 David N. Butterworth
**** (out of ****)
Never has truth in titular advertising applied more genuinely than to "Spirited Away," a breathtakingly magical animated fable that lifts your spirits and carries you away to a world far beyond your wildest imagination.
As conceived by the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki ("Princess Mononoke," "Kiki's Delivery Service," "My Neighbor Totoro"), "Spirited Away" is an incomparable blend of solid storytelling and endlessly imaginative visuals.
Its dazzling "Alice in Wonderland"-like story, which is part fantasy dream world, part nightmare vision, focuses on Chihiro, a gloomy 10-year-old who's moving to the suburbs with her parents. En route to their new home the hapless family stumbles upon a dark tunnel at the end of dirt road that leads to a deserted theme park of a land. Sensing danger at every turn Chihiro urges her parents to turn back yet they seem more concerned with filling their bellies from the plentiful--and unattended--market stalls and as a result of their gluttony (and in the first of the film's many inventive and too-scary-for-the-little-ones moments) are turned into pigs.
Helped by a mysterious boy named Haku, Chihiro must work for a witch named Yubaba in a bathhouse catering to Japanese gods, goblins, and monsters (with generic names like "radish spirit," "frog spirit," "river spirit," etc.) in order to break the spell and prevent her parents from gracing someone's dinner table.
From this brief plot précis alone you can see how "Spirited Away" blows away the competition with its phantasmagorical vision. Known as the Japanese Walt Disney, Miyazaki reminds us constantly that we're not in Hollywood anymore--this film has elements that surprise and amuse at every turn, images that are consistently fresh and original. There's depth and complexity to Miyazaki's tale: it's artful and courageous, haunting and evocative, and always creative... all descriptors absent from a review of, say, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame II."
At its center is Chihiro, a strong-willed waif who battles adversity head on, whether it be her nasty employer or the outlandish creatures that frequent the bathhouse (there's a stink monster that's a floating mass of pea-green ooze and a no-face monster with a black and white mask and a frail, girlish voice that consumes all that stand in its way). Chihiro is guided by her quick wittedness and her interminable politeness; she's a fantastic heroine in every sense of the word.
An English language-dubbed version of Miyazaki's masterpiece (overseen by Pixar's John Lasseter) comes to these shores via a distributor deal with Walt Disney Pictures and that's the version playing in theaters (the DVD release will feature the original Japanese version with English subtitles). Daveigh Chase (Lilo in Disney's "Lilo and Stitch") provides the voice of Chihiro, and there are contributions from Suzanne Pleshette, David Ogden Stiers, Susan Egan, John Ratzenberger, and Jason Marsden. "Spirited Away" has already won many prestigious awards, including tying for Best Film at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival and bettering a box office record for a Japanese film previously set by the director's own "Princess Mononoke."
These stats are no flukes. See "Spirited Away" for yourself and it'll make a believer of you too.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@dca.net
Got beef? Visit "La Movie Boeuf" online at http://members.dca.net/dnb
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