I never had my anime phase as a child, unless you count watching Pokémon and Teen Titans. While I have heard of Spirited Away for years now, I never had the motivation to watch it because I have never been into Japanese animation. However, after hearing a very interesting lecture in my Intro to Film class about the impact of foreign animation into our culture, it became much more interesting to me. I was quite confused at some parts of this film, but I enjoyed it regardless.
There were many parts that I loved about this film, even though I was extremely unfamiliar with it. The biggest aspect that I loved was the animation and design. The animation throughout the film was just absolutely gorgeous and the color schemes used were fantastic. This movie followed the rules of colors and moods to the tee, and I loved how much color influenced the actions and characteristics of the different characters. The animation was astounding, even for 2001, and while I have not seen any of the other Studio Ghibli films, this one blew my mind with its beauty. Other aspects of this film that I really enjoyed were the characterizations of the working children and the animals in the film. It was interesting to see how the characters interacted each other, especially the phantom No-Face. He was honestly my favorite character in the film, and seeing his actions affect the other characters was very interesting. The character of Chihiro was also riveting to see, as her journey through the strange land put her through so many trials and once she came back to her parents in the real world, she was completely changed. Development is always very important to me, and this film handled it very well.
Some things, however, that I did not quite enjoy about this film were its metaphors and variation of certain characters. I feel that this entire film is one extended metaphor about childhood and growing up, but I am just assuming that because I could not quite put my finger on it. Many metaphors throughout the film were very diluted and I personally did not understand most of them, even though I knew they were there. Some examples include the character of Haku, who was also a dragon for some reason, and Yubaba, who had a son that was a literal giant baby. These design choices didn't seem to serve any purpose to me, and it all just further made me uneasy. The only metaphor throughout the film that I understood clearly was how her parents were apparently turned into pigs. Even though we never saw them physically transform, it can be assumed that pigs were chosen because of their greed and gluttony. As for the rest of the film, I feel that your average viewer might have to go online afterwards in order to figure out what it was about. I personally feel that a good film would not require you to do that, but rather make you question things about yourself. This entire metaphorical confusion may be caused by the fact that I only speak English, live in America, and have an entirely different culture than that of the Japanese. I watched the English-dubbed version of this film, but perhaps it has a completely different meaning in Japan.
While I did not understand much of this film, I did appreciate its quality of design and animation. Spirited Away is a beautiful film that devotes its entirety to the beauty of childhood and aging, and I would recommend it for any fans of anime or worthwhile animation.
My Rating: ★★★
No comments:
Post a Comment