Enchantment - SPIRITED AWAY

The 5th of January is the 75th birthday of a great Japanese film director and one of the best director and writer of animated films: Hayao Miyazaki. Due to this, I would like to celebrate this day writing about a marvellous film, released in 2001, recently restored and re-dubbed in Italy (in 2014): Spirited Away(click on the title to watch the trailer).

  

Here you can read the plot if you don't know the story. As usual, I would like to highlight what strikes my attention and the main themes.

Miyazaki represents a horrible world, a metaphor of our world, full of greed, cupidity, mistreatment, cruelty, mockery, pollution and violence.

When I heard someone saying that this is just a cartoon, I get a little bit angry. Of course, it is not a film with actors so it can be considered a cartoon, but I think that this is much more: it's a form of art.

The problems he wants to show are displayed with an extraordinary gracefulness, so that all seems connected in an imaginary story, which doesn't deal with reality. But this isn't the truth.

He uses the form of a magic dream to guide us into fantasy, to make us recognize what we can do to save our planet and, to do this, he chooses Chihiro.

A girl, the symbol of our childhood, with all the characteristic of a normal girl, even with all her little big flaws.

We can see her growth during the film, her effort to save her parents, the challenges she bumps into, the honesty and the courage.

But she can't overcome without the help of true friends and, during the film, she meets a lot of different characters who make their contribution to the success of the "mission" of Chihiro.

A scene of the film

So Miyazaki shows us a glimmer of light, a hope of salvation. We have to use our willpower to change the situation, to help others,

The River Spirit once suffocated by pollution

giving them a second chance, as the No-Face (or Kaonashi), showing them the goodness of humans and the meaning of "family"

and also help others grow, as Bo, the capricious son of Yubaba.

Miyazaki introduces also the theme of love, which can make us stronger, capable of giving us the power to face even the fear of the unknown and the fear of losing all our loved ones.

We have to believe in ourselves, in the path we have gone through to become what we are today, not regretting our past.

"Once you've met someone,

you never really forget them.

It just takes a while for your memories

to return"

(Last but not least, we can't not mention the astonishing landscapes and the touching music of Joe Hisaishi, as the song "Itsumo Nando Demo (Always with me)")

Happy birthday, Hayao Miyazaki and thank you.