Spirited Away

“In everyday life, where we are surrounded, protected, and kept out of danger's way, it is difficult to feel that we are working to survive in this world. Children can only enlarge their fragile egos. Chihiro's skinny legs and her sulky face are their symbols. However, once the reality becomes clear and once she encounters a crisis, she will surely be aware of the life she actually possesses and of a capacity for flexibility and patience, and for decisive judgement and action.”* -Hayao Miyazaki (the birthday boy)First of all, happy birthday to the king of animation! To pay some homage to my favorite director on his birthday, what better movie to watch than his most acclaimed work? Spirited Away is an absolute masterpiece that’s more than deserving of all it’s fame and praise. It’s overflowing with charm and beauty, showcasing the vibrant poetry that can be accomplished by the film medium. The animation is the most discussed accomplishment of this film, and that’s not without reason. The imagery is overwhelmingly stunning, creating a peaceful and unique atmosphere that carries out this poetic coming-of-age epic. While the protagonist is surrounded in a world filled with greed and corruption, the beauty of Spirited Away* lies in the highlighting of inherent human goodness, and how showing compassion to others is where true beauty can be found.  This film is an enchantingly obscure piece of poetry, telling a beautiful story that roots itself deeply within Japanese culture and mythology, resulting in a remarkably down-to-earth explosion of imagination. These historical roots play a crucial role in the totality of the film, nuancing the narrative’s navigation of adolescence within a capitalist society. Chihiro’s role in the film is to find her way within the transition between childhood and adolescence, and her development in a world surrounded by materialism reflects modern life. She learns how to find humanity within a workforce that exists solely for material goods—a system that strips its workers of their names, and with that, their identity. Chihiro’s navigation in this system makes her rely on the values that exist in her core. In a world filled with greed and selfishness, Chihiro’s anti-materialistic mindset pushes her heroism towards inherent goodness. Things like gold are nothing but dirt to her, so she respectfully rejects it, because for her, true value is found in kindness and helping others to find their own sense of purpose. It’s not easy for her to find this kindness within herself—she’s petrified throughout the entire film, but leaning into her fear and learning to be courageous helps her face the largest challenges while still emitting compassion. Her compassion for others is without discrimination, despite how she’s treated, and that boundless compassion leaves an impression on those she shows it to. This is exemplified by the sequence where she cares for a polluted sludge monster despite its grotesque appearance and focusing on the value beneath the mud, revealing a beautiful river spirit who inevitably benefits everybody in return for her kindness. The impression her kindness leaves creates a support system for Chihiro that gradually builds throughout the film, such as Lin, Bo, the River Spirit, and many more. This system not only strengthens her ability to navigate capitalism, but also helps others discover their own identity and humanity. This selflessness is a virtue that helps an individual both strengthen their sense of self while spreading kindness onto others. In order to push the ideas of kindness, the film primarily focuses on Chihiro's helping No-Face out of a crisis. No-Face, an individual who is assumed to have blindly navigated through its entire life, encapsulates walking covetousness in search for a sense of validation. When Chihiro shows kindness, it doesn’t know how to react, so in an attempt to reciprocate that kindness, it offers the only thing it understands: material goods. This reflects a trait that we see proliferating in our modern society. Without any sense of individual worth, people will engulf themselves within consumer culture in an attempt to fill a void. Chihiro recognizes this issue, and offers it a magical medicine that makes it vomit, creating a grotesque scene of No-Face purging the slop that resides within it, symbolically emptying it of its overwhelming thoughts, creating a physical emptiness within it that opens a lot of room for reflection. No-Face’s reflection leads to a silently apologetic reconciliation, emitting the positivity that it meant to show Chihiro in the first place. The same could be said about Haku—while he is overwhelmed by the responsibility of the workforce, Chihiro returns his compassion he showed her earlier and gives him the medicine, allowing him to reflect on his actions and regain the sense of self the workforce stripped him of. These sequences mirror the importance of self-reflection and how it can push an individual towards a more compassionate nature—the closest we can get to self actualization. These transformations reflect the importance of looking inward to find purpose beyond consumption. The way we can reach this level of actualization is by emitting the boundless compassion shown by Chihiro, which is the spirit that drives Spirited Away’s thematic beauty.  There’s so much to love about this masterpiece of dream logic. It’s so obscure and wacky, but it delivers a story of simplicity that pushes the value of kindness in a beautifully enchanting way. So, happy birthday to Miyazaki!