Official Synopsis
“Spirited Away”is a wondrous fantasy about a young girl, Chihiro, trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call on the courage she never knew she had to free herself and return her family to the outside world. An unforgettable story, brimming with creativity, “Spirited Away” will take you on a journey beyond your imagination.
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Spirited Away is Miyazaki’s pinnacle masterpiece that is probably one of the most entertaining, evenly balanced and character driven films that he and his studio created. If you’re looking for a reason to get into Miyazaki films, this is where you should begin. It’s a hauntingly beautiful piece of work that caters to all ages and just absolutely takes you in from the start until the finish.
If you’re not familiar with the film, let me break it down a bit for you.
Chihiro, a young girl moving to a strange new town, and is a fish out of water from the beginning of the film, stumbles upon an old ‘abandoned’ marketplace with her parents. Despite the abandoned look of the place, the marketplace offers up food, which her parents oblige, and eventually traps her parents by turning them into greedy pigs, literally.
Freaked out to begin with, and especially so now, a panicked Chichiro (Daveigh Chase) escapes the fate of her parents and finds her way into a mysterious bath house run by a foul-tempered witch named Yubaba (the late-great Suzanne Pleshette), who takes Chichiro in, but at a price — she steals her name. Chichiro has to make her own path in Yubaba’s house, with help from her reluctant companion Lin (Susan Egan) and a bevy of other unique characters, while trying to hatch a plan to take back her name and to spring her parents (and herself) from Yubaba’s clutches. Easier said than done, though.
What’s great about this film is how Miyazaki carefully crafts each step of the way for Chichiro. He takes great pride in developing her from useless, complaining kid to a strong, young woman ready to take on the world. He takes his time crafting this path for her, which is what makes this movie amazing. Seeing Chichiro rise from the ashes of the bath house (literally) and find a way to the end of her journey is a beautiful thing to behold. That single bit is the most magical part of this movie. It’s journey that is put together so darn well. Everything around her (spirits, frogs, gods) just helps push that agenda along.
On top of the story, the animation is one of the best out there in the anime category. It’s visually superb and you can see every little bit of it carefully crafted to cater to the magical world that Chichiro resides in and Miyazaki has built for her. You’ll see this from the moment her parents find the enormous, rolling green pastures of the marketplace. You’ll be in awe of the lonely train ride out (in water) to visit another witch. Even when things go wrong, especially when No Face (a ghostly character) appears, you’ll be visually stunned with how a studio produced this by hand. Everything is so detailed in the animation. The lighting is perfect, the characters are gorgeous and you’ll develop a sense of melancholy for the days of hand drawn animation before the cheating computer technology took over (kidding, kidding).
To help push all of the animation and story along is Joe Hisaishi’s adventurous, yet thought-provoking musical score. Never discount the placement of good music when it comes to ramping up the scenes, explaining the characters or just taking you to an emotional place you have forgotten about. It adds a lot to Miyazaki’s body of work.
Overall, Miyazaki films don’t get better than Spirited Away. In my opinion, it’s the best movie to ever come out of Studio Ghibli, and believe me there is plenty of competition in that pool of films.
On the Blu-ray side of the equation, Disney did a fantastic job cleaning up this nearly 15-year old film. It’s clean, crisp and possibly more beautiful than when it debuted in the theater. They took care of it and carefully made sure that this release looked its best. There weren’t any imperfections in the transfer and it’s truly a gorgeous film in HD. One of the best on Blu-ray from Disney and Studio Ghibli.
On the special features side of things, here’s what you’re getting:
– Intro by John Lasseter
– The Art of Spirited Away
– Behind the Microphone
– Original Japanese Storyboards
– Nippon Television Special
– Original Japanese Trailers/TV Spots
You’ve seen a lot of these before on the previous release. They’re still good, but there isn’t a lot of new items here, which makes me sad a bit. Still, I’m just happy to see this thing make it to Blu-ray, as it has been long overdue.
Solid features, though.
