Evaluation of Spirited Away
Evaluation of Spirited Away Spirited Away is an anime movie from Hayao Miyazaki, one of the greatest Japanese animation directors. His movies are full of imaginations, thoughtful messages, and they always have a happy ending. Spirited Away is not an exception. It is a great anime movie that will take viewers on a journey beyond their imagination with a very beautiful ending, and it also contains a meaningful message about the relationship between human and the nature. Spirited Away is about the journey to the land of spirits of a ten-year-old girl named Chihiro.
Chihiro and her parents are driving to their new home in a strange town. Her dad takes a shortcut through the woods and ends up in front of a tunnel. Her parents decide to see what lies through it despite of her protest. On the other side, they find a “theme park” and a food counter filled with fresh food inside. Her parents start to wolf it down, but she senses danger and refuses to eat. As the night falls, she is terrified to see the area filled with spirits. She runs to her parents and discovers that they have been turned into pigs.
A mysterious boy named Haku finds her and helps her to hide from the spirits. The area turns into a hot bath house for the gods and spirits to replenish themselves. Haku helps her to find a job in the bath house in order for her to stay and finds a way to save her parents. Though the work is hard, and she has to work with monsters in the bath house, she does as well as she can and finally saves her parents. Movies in general must have some elements to be successful. The main purpose of a movie is to make the audience interested.
The audience is always looking for bizarre beyond their own lives, so a great movie is the movie that can amaze the audience by taking them to the world beyond their imagination. A great movie is also a movie that the audience will remember after watching it. To make the audience remember a movie, it must have something to think about. That is why a great movie must convey meaningful messages that will make the audience think about and stay in their hearts. Movie is a form of entertainment, so it is undoubtedly that a great movie must succeed in entertaining its audience.
A great movie needs to make the audience feels ease in mind and happy after watching it instead of filling audience’s mind with sadness. That is the reason why a happy ending is mandatory. Spirited Away is a great movie with full of imagination. If the audience read a lot of fairy tales, they will feel they are at home while watching Spirited Away. A human is turned into animal because he did something wrong is a familiar motive in fairy tales. In the movie, Chihiro’s parents are turned into pigs because they ate the food without permission.
Usually, kids are punished because of their bad behaviors in fairy tales, but this time, in Miyazaki’s movie, adults are punished instead of kids, and the savior is a girl. This is where the imagination of Hayao Miyazaki turns on. The viewers will see the spiritual appears on the screen under the eyes of a girl. Some gods look like animals, and there is a god looks like a blob with a red bowl on his head. The spirits and gods are not scary but very familiar. They look weird, and the viewer might see some of them somewhere in their dreams when they were kids.
The bath house is used by gods and spirits, so the employees of the bath house can’t be human. The employees are talking animals. They are working for a cruel witch, who has very big head and body. All those things are somewhere in the viewers’ childhood memory, and Hayao Miyazaki brings them all up onto the screen. Spirited Away also conveys a meaningful message. It is the environmental message. Chihiro’s encounter with a river god early in her bath house career is a good evidence of this. In the movie, Yubaba senses the stink spirit. She immediately evacuates the bath house and then assigns Chihiro to be the stink spirit attendant.
Though this is a very difficult job, Chihiro manages to get the stink spirit cleaned. While she is cleaning the stink spirit, she sees a thorn on the stink spirit. She pulls the thorn. It turns out that the thorn is the handle of a bicycle, and there are tons of garbage are coming out of the stink spirit. Astonishingly, the stink spirit is a river god, who is heavily dirtied by the pollution of his river. Later she discovers that Haku is the god of the Kohaku River, and Haku is the one who saved her life when she was a child. This makes the viewers think of the relationship between human and the nature.
Human rely to the nature, but they are destroying the nature. This is a meaningful message that will make the audience think about the nature after watching Spirited Away. Spirited Away has a very beautiful ending. No Face is a lonely spirit. He travels place to place without purposes. Finally, he finds a home to stay. He stays with Zeniba to look after her. It is a beautiful ending for a lonely spirit. Chihiro finally saves her parents from Yubaba. She passes the test of Yubaba and breaks the spell. It is a happy ending that all the viewers expect. There is also a happy ending for Yubaba.
Her son returns after a journey to Zeniba’s house, and he grows up more after the trip. Haku remembers his name is Kohaku, and he is the god of the Kohaku River. He is no longer under control of Yubaba. For Chihiro, she has grown into a better person for her experience in the spiritual world. Spirited Away is a great movie. It shows the viewers the imaginary world that the viewers only see in their childhood dream. The movie also contains a meaningful message about the environment. Finally, the viewers will feel relieved after watching Spirited Away because of its beautiful ending.
