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Volume CXXXII, Number 22 |
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More than Mickey
MONICA GUZMAN
COLUMNIST
While Pixar Studios programs computer-crafted worlds of monsters and playthings, and Disney struggles to regain the reputation it has so shamefully lost to the far more technical designers of Shrek, Hayao Miyazaki still manages to astonish viewers worldwide-not to mention the Academy-with animation of the purest kind: pencil, paper, and imagination.
Spirited Away, the Japanese director's latest masterpiece, hails a rebirth of the children's movie, raising a young hero in the face of adversity and adventure. Lacking the formulaic Disney-character romance plot, any annoying instances of characters bursting into song, and even Emperor's Groove- style wit and humor to keep the kiddies giggling in their popcorn, this is an unpackaged, unsweetened drama, free from the candied coatings of more typical American animation. But best of all, it's got some real heart, and epic challenges worthy of a Harry Potter novel-though somehow even more magical. This is not about twenty-something princes and princesses chasing after each other; it's no fairy tale conveniently set in a mythical past. Spirited Away is all about the kid.
Chihiro is an ordinary little girl, afraid, as all children are, of her move to a new home. Her parents excitedly point out her new school from the car windows, but Chihiro stays angry and resistant. The true magic begins when Chihiro and her parents step through the rabbit hole, so to speak-an entrance hidden deep in the woods to a world of spirits. Her parents, unaware of the dangers, turn into pigs from eating the spirit world food, and Chihiro, alone and afraid, is left to fend for herself.
Fortunately, she soon meets Hoku, a spirit who will become her dearest friend. He tells her how to survive: she must get a job in the spirit bathhouse, owned by the eccentric and sometimes wicked Yubaba, and earn her way out. Gathering up all her courage, Chihiro does as she must, encountering new friends and new challenges that teach her that after pulling junk out of a smelly river spirit, talking a monster out of eating workers and guests, saving Hoku's life, and distinguishing her parents from a pen of pigs, life in a new home is nothing she can't handle.
These dozens of unique characters, all spirits based on Japanese myths and tradition, are made to look so real by the skilled artwork of the animators that you almost believe they are. From the heavyset raddish spirits to the flighty dragons, muddy "stink" spirits to greedy frogs, Kamaji the six-armed boiler room keeper, No-Face the lonely monster, and especially the old woman Yubaba and her 300 pound baby, these characters could have only been brought to such stunning, radiant life through the unlimited possibilities of animation. After all, anything you can imagine, you can draw.
And Miyazaki, apparently, can imagine quite a bit. Besides being the director, he is also the writer, not to mention the artistic designer of many of the fascinatingly beautiful shots-painting intricate detail into the outside of the bathhouse and mastering the intricacies behind rays of light, pools of shadow, and the radiant spectrum of color. You can hardly believe that what you are watching could have ever been created by skilled artists alone.
Chihiro is voiced by 12-year-old Daveigh Chase in the English version, who also provided the voice of Lilo in Disney's Lilo and Stitch earlier this year. She was also the single cause of many a nightmare back in the fall with her portrayal of Samara Morgan in the horror flick The Ring. Although the film is quite obviously dubbed from its original Japanese, the translation in no way distracts from the plot or the film action itself, thanks to the flexible medium of animation. Daveigh does a wonderful job bringing the young hero to life, reflecting Chihiro's anxieties as she grows more courageous and strong.
Much thanks, somewhat sadly, goes to Disney for partially funding the project and bringing it to a more mainstream audience in the United States. The language and cultural barriers are sometimes too high for a film to be able to cross them all on its own merit.
But Miyazaki's film has only brought a newfound appreciation for the still-magical possibilities of traditional animation to a domestic genre now obsessed with exploiting technology. Spirited Away is a breath of fresh air-a kind of film we had almost forgotten could even exist, but are ultimately relieved to see is still alive and well.
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