View Larger Image |
Spirited Away Actor: Miyu Irino Director: Hayao Miyazaki Number of Items: 2 Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen Format: Animated, Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) Running Time: 132 minutes Studio: Walt Disney Home Video Region Code: 1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2003-04-15 Buy from Amazon |
 "Gorgeous, exciting, and...confusing"This is a lovely movie, for the most part. The animation and graphics are a lush treat for the eyes, and the fantasy elements are awe-inspiring. If you can willingly suspend your disbelief, the strange and wonderful things that the young heroine encounters in the spirit world are unbelievably cool: There's a weird old man who works ceaselessly in a boiler room with his hundreds of legs; an entire flock of fluttering paper birds; and an endless parade of "spirits" of every type. There is a small problem, though, which prevents me from giving Spirited Away a perfect score: a lot of things don't make much sense. Some loose ends are never tied up, and some story elements are never explained. Overall, watching this feels like having a really good dream; you'll get wrapped up in its wonder, but you awake a bit disoriented.  "Words cannot describe this movie"To call this movie a "masterpiece" is meaningless, even for a Miyazaki film, because of the ebbing significance of the word. This movie is partly like a dream and partly like a nightmare. At times it is pure, unfettered elation, like in the flying scene. It is beautiful, haunting, sensitive, poetic, entertaining, funny at all the appropriate times, and, above all, intelligent. It occupies a world that exists less in Japanese mythology and more in the universal child's mythology, and like "Pinocchio" it reveals a child's instinctive fears coming true. These words can't entirely describe the movie, because it is not like any I have ever seen. All I can do is insist that you see this movie. It is the best movie by the greatest animator. I was recommended Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke," and, years after Disney's streak of really bad movies had turned me away from cartoons, I became a believer once more in animation's ability to transport me away from everything familiar. This movie lacks much of the scope and pathos of "Princess Mononoke." While I think comparing the two movies is an apples/oranges case, I'll say that "Spirited Away" is more poignant, because it has a more personal approach. Chihiro stays the film's protagonist from beginning to end, and the other characters, epic and spectacular as some of them are, never distract us from the movie's focus. This allows us to have much more sympathy for Chihiro than characters in other children's movies, where we look AT them instead of through their point of view. That we care this much for the main character in a movie so full of other-worldly fantasy is a testament to the genius of Hayao Miyazaki. I recommend this DVD for you no matter who you are. If you don't love it, you need to loosen your tie. "what will they think of next????"WEll i really liked the main caracter, Chikiro and her best friend Hahcku -- he turns into a pretty dragon. Then I love the part whne they kill Yubeba! Her nice twin sister Zenaba takes the kids in and uses No Face this black spirit with a mask to sow clothes for Chikiro! Then there's Kamachy the boiler dude and he is Chikiros grandpa. Her parents get turned into pigs and are eated for bacon! Last there is 3 heads that are Yubebas hench people! they're green and bounce around! I like when the paper things cut up the dragon! its so ironic with PAPER--get it, paper CUTS??? IT's such a cute movie! I will watch it again and again! And hey , maybe you should to!!! I garantee you will love it! Japenese people shure know what their doing over there with there animation!!! Go Studio Jibli!!! "A japanese Super Nova!"The thin line between imagination and reality, and the use of a cavern to cross the forbidden limits leads us immediately to the same roots of the mythic fact: Once you have decided to break the line watch out for the consequences. Shijiro and her parents are in a happy picnic and suddenly the curiosity will empower them and you will assist to one of the most memorable imagination exercises in decades. The multiple adventures lived by Shijiro will work out as a frame and will show us some little details, but profoundly revealing such as the awful spelling of her parents on pigs when they have not obeyed certain rules of the game inside this weird world. Excellent work, innovative, fresh that reflects a deep artistic commitment. New airs from the East, will convince you the cinema is able to reinvent itself time after time, this is the intrinsic quality of the art, in last instance. A must for all the family, but much more than a simple children story. A journey to the dense brumes of the imagination! "Spirited Away Is a Window on Another Tradition"This movie is so beautiful--full of dreamlike mysteries.I'd like to point out, however, that many of the mysterious elements are only mysterious to non-Japanese. Like our movies, this one is full of allusions to religious and folkloric traditions that a native takes for granted. For me, the wonder is heightened by my mental comparisons--what is common to both traditions and what is new and mysterious to me? What are the elements that I need to explore further? This film made me wish I had more time to do some research or maybe even visit Japan . . . |
