2001. Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi a.k.a. Spirited Away - 124 minutes
First movie of Sir Miyazaki I ever watched and the cause of my addiction to the gender … despite the fact that not being used with the style it seemed to me a little bit too frightening and crowded in weird characters for a cartoon.
But this is not a cartoon we are talking about here. It’s an anime movie, a real, classical anime. And as far as I am concerned: a great one.
It reminds me somehow of the plot from another classic: Alice in Wonderland.
A standard Japanese teenager (Ten-Ager) Chihiro, who has the standard feeling that she does not belong, or that she does not fit in, due to some irrelevant turn of events gets to be lured in a totally non-standard, magical, mystical world of the spirits, and after spending an unknown period of time in there as Sen … will get out mature, grateful and in love.
She passes throw a transformation … from a caterpillar into a lovely butterfly.
Who is the White Rabbit that guides and protects her? Remember that we are not in the old good England …
A White Dragon! Who else?
Haku does not reveal to us as a dragon from the beginning, but as a candid, lovely boy who even now (after I’ve watched the whole list of Sir Miyazaki’s movies and tons of others anime) is still in top five of my favorite anime male characters.
He is not just cute, but also hard working, serious, fearless, and he will do everything it takes to help his friend taking her name back and lifting the spell put upon her parents in order to go back to the real world.
The parallelism with Alice’s story might continue with other characters as well: the two witches sisters resemble with the two Queens and No Face with The Grinning Cheshire Cat.
He is not just cute, but also hard working, serious, fearless, and he will do everything it takes to help his friend taking her name back and lifting the spell put upon her parents in order to go back to the real world.
The parallelism with Alice’s story might continue with other characters as well: the two witches sisters resemble with the two Queens and No Face with The Grinning Cheshire Cat.
Yubaba, the main antagonist, is definitely similar with The Red Queen (The Queen of Hearts) having the same XXL head and type of behavior.
If the Red Queen favorite phrase was “Off with his/her Head” we meet here a kind of “Off with his/her Name” or “Off with his/her Kanji”, our lady preferring to cut off a Kanji character from the victims’ name in order to change it and to cancel their past. This was helping her to control them and use them in her service. More pragmatic then the English version (Alice) I would say and a very intelligent move also.
If somebody has no past, unless he isn’t an above average type of person, it will be very difficult for him to have a future, being blocked in an undefined present.
Smart psychological move Yubaba!
Zeniba, Yubaba’s sister, might be considered The White Queen (The Queen of Chess), helping eventually our main teenagers to make it out.
The movie is yours to enjoy offering something interesting for any type of viewer: drama, adventure, mystery, panoply of Nippon mythology, delicate problems of the contemporary world such as consumerism, over-eating or environment protection.
The message that is send out there is complex and the work of the team who produced this movie must have been huge.
But despite all above mentioned issues what remained in my heart was the genuine love between Sen & Haku, although they came from different worlds.
Love really conquers all, isn’t it?
Smart psychological move Yubaba!
Zeniba, Yubaba’s sister, might be considered The White Queen (The Queen of Chess), helping eventually our main teenagers to make it out.
The movie is yours to enjoy offering something interesting for any type of viewer: drama, adventure, mystery, panoply of Nippon mythology, delicate problems of the contemporary world such as consumerism, over-eating or environment protection.
The message that is send out there is complex and the work of the team who produced this movie must have been huge.
But despite all above mentioned issues what remained in my heart was the genuine love between Sen & Haku, although they came from different worlds.
Love really conquers all, isn’t it?
I love this anime:X:X
RăspundețiȘtergereActaully they came from the same world. Haku originally belonged to the world Chihiro came from, and saved her when she was little.
RăspundețiȘtergereFor some reasons, he went into the world of spirit and was apprenticed to Yubaba.