Reviews & Ratings for
千と千尋の神隠し (2001)

A tale of a young girl to save her parents from a Bathhouse witch by working off her debt under her. This beautifully hand-drawn animation is one of the genuine feel-good animations to come across. Miyazaki was able to create more than just a tale for her then ten-year-old daughter. The story of a rescue, love, innocence and more. It is a well-made family movie.

Studio Ghibli is the Disney or Pixar of anime. With breath taking artistry and the goal of the director to teach the modern generations about the legends and stories of Japanese folklore, it is a heart touching story.

Viewing Hiyao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" for the third time, I was struck by a quality between generosity and love. On earlier viewings I was caught up by the boundless imagination of the story. This time I began to focus on the elements in the picture that didn't need to be there. Animation is a painstaking process, and there is a tendency to simplify its visual elements. Miyazaki, in contrast, offers complexity. His backgrounds are rich in detail, his canvas embraces space liberally, and it is all drawn with meticulous attention. We may not pay much conscious attention to the corners of the frame, but we know they are there, and they reinforce the remarkable precision of his fantasy worlds.
"Spirited Away" is surely one of the finest of all animated films, and it has its foundation in the traditional bedrock of animation, which is frame-by-frame drawing. Miyazaki began his career in that style, but he is a realist and has permitted the use of computers for some of the busywork. But he personally draws thousands of frames by hand. "We take handmade cell animation and digitize it in order to enrich the visual look," he told me in 2002, "but everything starts with the human hand drawing."

Consider a scene in "Spirited Away" where his young heroine stands on a bridge leading away from the magical bathhouse in which much of the movie is set. The central action and necessary characters supply all that is actually needed, but watching from the windows and balconies of the bathhouse are many of its occupants. It would be easier to suggest them as vaguely moving presences, but Miyazaki takes care to include many figures we recognize. All of them are in motion. And it isn't the repetitive motion of much animation, in which the only idea is simply to show a figure moving. It is realistic, changing, detailed motion.

Most people watching the movie will simply read those areas of the screen as "movement." But if we happen to look, things are really happening there. That's what I mean by generosity and love. Mikayazi and his colleagues care enough to lavish as much energy on the less significant parts of the frame. Notice how much of the bathhouse you can see. It would have been quicker and easier to show just a bridge and a doorway. But Miyazaki gives his bathhouse his complexity of a real place, which possesses attributes whether or not the immediate story requires them.

This movie deserves no less than a 5 because it is simply THE MOST AMAZING ANIMATED FILM ever made.
And I put the blame entirely on the deadly duo of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. Miyazaki once mentioned about the concept of emptiness or "ma." These are the seemingly empty moments in between frames, when nothing of consequence happens but the plot advances and you feel sated. In an interview, Miyazaki mentioned that as a filmmaker, he firmly believed in "ma". It is what other film makers shy away from - in a bid to keep their audience engaged. And it s this what Miyazaki's films are full of, and leave you feel no less sated.
A visual treat, every frame is taken care of and you can see Miyazaki reward his fans with allusions to previous works. The small soot balls, the lamp-post-cum-lantern that guides the way, Yubaba's ginormous child and the talking heads are all unnecessary to the plot, yet they are what makes the film memorable. The bathhouse with it's elaborate decorations, Sen's slow descent down the stairs to the furnace - these are the frames that are etched in one's mind forever. There is also a stress on grey characters - Chihiro is both sacrificing and selfish, Haku is both loving and deceitful, No-face is both - Sen's protector and a glutton. Much like real life. There is also metaphors aplenty! We see Chihiro's parents turn into pigs due to their gluttony of "wolfing like a pig".
This is a film for both adults and children alike because each age group will find a new layer to it. Miyazaki once mentioned that the entire film was simply a metaphor for the Japanese adult film industry and while there have been heavy debates both for and against this topic, I implore you to watch this film for it's richness in dialogue, ma and animation.

Who thought ghosts could get emotionally attached, give out gifts, and become your close friends, and follow you everywhere because...they like you? That's not normal, that's not how it works! Well, that is how Miyazaki's worlds work. Spirited away captures exactly this essence of a 'parallel universe of ghosts''. They have real jobs and responsibilities, no kidding. If you want to give your mind a dizzy shot of anything, it has to be a movie. And it has to be this. It will make you think deep, but...in a very very different direction. Those who let their minds take a good exercise in imagination must watch this. And be Awed.