In 2001, “Spirited Away” won the Golden Bear at the 52nd Berlin Film Festival, becoming the first animated work in the history of cinema to win the Best Film Award at an international film festival. This is a recognition of both the animation and the creative core of Miyazaki’s long-standing work that embodies the ultimate concern for human life.
The film tells the story of an ordinary ten-year-old girl, Chihiro’s fantasy experience, once Chihiro on the way to move, bored in the back seat of the car, with her parents to the new home of a complete stranger, for the new life is about to unveil, she does not feel excited fun. As the journey continues, her father discovers a spooky and eerie tunnel in the mountains in order to take a shortcut, and despite her daughter Chihiro’s advice, her parents take the lead and enter the tunnel.
The town, which suddenly awakens at nightfall, is home to countless gods and spirits, whose destination is a huge bathhouse run by a magical woman, Mrs. Tang. In this magical world, if individuals do not work hard, they will be transformed into pigs, just like Chihiro’s parents. In order to save her parents, Chihiro is placed in the bathhouse of Mrs. Tang, and in the process of hard work, she makes many new friends and also experiences many incredible events; in this process, Chihiro’s mind has enlightenment and growth, and she keeps thinking, waiting for an opportunity to save her parents and also save herself, thus embarking on a wonderful adventure.
Once you sort out the main story of Spirited Away, you will find that its narrative logic is basically the same as the classic narrative pattern. Spirited Away” is a mythical fable focusing on reality. Miyazaki uses the classic narrative to familiarize the audience with the structure of the entire story pattern, maximizing their awareness and quickly entering the context of the film’s provisions without any obstacles. Director Hayao Miyazaki uses profound character experiences to show the spiritual contradictions in social life and to get new views and reflections on inner struggles and self-redemption in the story.
It can be said that “Spirited Away” is a new manifestation of Miyazaki’s thought transformation process in recent years. Leaving aside the director’s deeply sublime cinematic themes, even if the film is only about a young girl’s adventures, it is still so astounding. Miyazaki hopes that all the girls watching this film will be as energetic as the young girl in “Spirited Away”. This film is suitable for every girl who is about to embark on or walk through the path of life and tells them how to gain courage and how to struggle and persist in fighting through setbacks, after all, this is a mandatory lesson that no one can escape.
The adventures of Chihiro in the film provide the audience with a fantasy space full of reminiscence and introspection. Through this film, Hayao Miyazaki conveys the film’s profound philosophy: the world is full of temptations and traps. If you are not careful, greed will be unleashed, and people will involuntarily fall into the abyss of desire and cannot get out, thus issuing a powerful warning to the world.
At the same time, “Spirited Away” unlike Hollywood and European animation works, they like to attract the audience with the character’s action and exaggerated plot, Miyazaki’s animation is not based on children’s tastes and points of interest, although the main characters in the story are mainly children, but the beginning and end of each film. There has been a sense of solemnity and mission that is completely different from that of fairy tales.
It can be seen that Spirited Away is not just for ten-year-old girls, it is an impressive personal reflection of Miyazaki-kun’s vision of the good in the hearts of the entire human society. The audience can see in the film an interesting portrait of the director’s inner world, and in this film, the director Miyazaki’s consistent insistence on respecting each person’s self-existence and perception is re-emphasized, and he has a clearer answer than ever before about the meaning of human existence in the future.
It is worth mentioning that the composer of “Spirited Away”, Japanese music master Jean Hisaishi, who has long been cooperating with Hayao Miyazaki on his animation works, most of Miyazaki’s film music is written by Jean Hisaishi. It can be said that Jean Hisaishi is the spokesman of Miyazaki’s animation music. His score in Spirited Away represents almost the highest level of Hayao Miyazaki’s animation music, and his minimalist music style makes Spirited Away animated movie full of imagination and fun.
Hisaishi’s music has always been able to bring the audience into the mythical world created by the director, and although the music style of this work is slightly different from the previous one, it once again achieves a perfect match and plays a key role in driving the mood. It can be said that in this film, Hisaishi’s music captures the needs of the film to the maximum extent, giving full play to his own style while achieving the harmony between the director’s style and the musician’s style.
Throughout this animated film, Hayao Miyazaki not only gives the story a powerful imagination in “Spirited Away”, but also renders the colors of the picture extremely well, and the rich use of cinematic language appropriately sublimates the theme. In the film, the director’s artistic transition between the camera and the shot is clever, achieving a perfect combination of Eastern cultural charm and Western decorative arts, and more importantly, the reflection and exploration of human innocence and courage contained behind the story by Hayao Miyazaki, giving the viewer a huge inner impact and reflection. It can be said that “Spirited Away”, as a classic work of Miyazaki’s career, is also a rare animated feature film even in the world cinema.