千与千寻(Spirited Away)英语影评

千与千寻

(Spirited Away)

Miyazaki

is

both

commercially successful (his films

regularly beat

box office

records)

and

highly

respected

(Akira

Kurosawa

said:

am

somewhat

disturbed

when

critics

lump

our

works

together.

One

cannot

mimimise

the

importance

of

Miyazaki's work by comparing it to mine.

got more than a few cursory arts venue screenings. At least Spirited Away

- which

took the Berlin Golden Bear in 2002 and the Best Animated Film Oscar in 2003

-

made

it.

Better

late

than

never.

Animated

feature

from

Japanese

master

Hayao

Miyazaki.

A

young

girl

finds

herself

trapped

in

a

mystical

realm,

where

she

must

find a way to save her parents - who have been turned into pigs

There's something almost criminal about the way Spirited Away took over two

years to reach Britain after its original Japanese release. In Japan, Hayao

After the stress

of making his

last film,

1997's Princess

Mononoke, Miyazaki

had a breakdown and retired. But he came out of retirement when an idea to create

another, lighter film began to take shape. Princess Mononoke was an action-packed

epic

that

ranged

across

15th

century

Japan.

For

Spirited

Away

he

returned

to

the

quieter

-

but

no

less

serious

-

themes

that

he

addressed

to

a

degree

in

1988's

My

Neighbor

Tortoro.

Both

films

feature

a

family

moving

house,

girls

getting

used

to

upheaval,

and

elements

of

'Alice

In

Wonderland'.

But

where

the

1988

film

used

a

few specific motifs from Carroll's book (a plunge into a 'rabbit hole', a version of the

Cheshire

cat),

Spirited

Away

casts

its

10-year-old

protagonist,

Chihiro

(H?

ragi;

or

Chase in the US dub), fully into a Wonderland, a mystical otherworld populated by

animal

spirits

and

gods.

Chihiro

arrives

in

this

realm

by

accident.

Her

parents,

heading for their new home, take a road that leads into the woods. Arriving at a dead

end, they walk down a corridor through a building and emerge in what dad takes to

be

deserted.

While

her

parents

greedily

help

themselves

to

food,

Chihiro

wanders

off