Movie Discussion: Spirited Away (2001) by Hayao Miyazaki
Details
Blurring the lines between life and death, reality and fantasy, imagination and madness, Spirited Away is Studio Ghibli’s most critically acclaimed work and the highest-grossing Japanese film in history. After they move to a small suburban town, a sullen 10-year-old Chihiro and her parents inadvertently stumble into the world of kami (spirits of Japanese Shinto folklore). When Chihiro's parents are turned into pigs, she is forced to work all manner of odd jobs in the spirit world to save them. Will she ever return to the world she once knew? Featuring some of director Hayao Miyazaki’s most dazzlingly imaginative creations, Spirited Away is a visual wonder and a uniquely philosophical take on the coming-of-age story.
“Spirited Away sets its intimations of mortality, the decline of a culture, and the loss of nature against one of the most sumptuous and dazzling mises en scène ever created in cinema — the bathhouse of the gods." (Sight and Sound)
"A dazzling, enchanting, and gorgeously drawn fairy tale that will leave viewers a little more curious and fascinated by the world around them." (Rotten Tomatoes)
"No one else conjures the phantasmagoric and shifting morality of dreams — that fascinating and frightening aspect of having something that seems to represent good become evil — in the way Miyazaki does. (New York Times)
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Let's discuss the classic Japanese anime Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し) written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, recently voted the 75th greatest movie of all time in Sight & Sound's international survey of film critics and scholars. The film won numerous awards including the prestigious Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival and the Academy Award for best animated feature in 2003. It was the highest grossing Japanese film of all time until 2020 when it was surpassed by Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba.
Please watch the movie in advance (125 minutes) and bring your thoughts, reactions, and queries to share with us at the meeting. You can stream an English-dubbed version HERE or rent it on various streaming platforms (for best quality or if you prefer the original Japanese voices.)
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Check out other movie discussions in the group, currently happening about 2 or 3 times a month.
This link here is a spreadsheet of the approximately 200 movies we've watched in this group and my ratings for each. You're invited to share your ratings too if you've watched a bunch of these movies with us. (I can add your list here if you send me a link. You can make your own list on sites like Letterboxd or by copying my spreadsheet and filling in your own values. Note that my list doesn't include every movie that Yorgo hosted on cause I didn't watch all of them.)