“It is an adventure story without weapons and magical fighting. It is not describing the conflicts between justice and evil, but about how to survive in the society which is composed with kindness and viciousness. Learning human’s love, using the potential wise of her own, Chihiro finally go back to the human’s society. It’s not because of she defeat the evil or something, but she dug up her potential power of life. Nowadays, Japanese society is becoming more and more ambiguous, kindness and viciousness are mixed together, hard to distinguish them. Using the characters in animation world to describe the reasons and powers in life, that is what I considered when I made the film.”By Hayao Miyazaki.
Spirited Away is animated by Hayao Miyazaki, in December 2001. Hayao Miyazaki is a famous animation director in Japan, he not only direct his animation, but also write the script, draw the scenes.
To introduce Miyazaki, we have to look into the history of Japanese manga first. Japanese manga is developed from American and European comic, it slowly has its own style as it develops. When Disney is focusing on high technology of computer generated, Japanese manga is going a way to develop their skill of hand drawing. Since Osamu Tezuka, they begin to put camera techniques of movies into manga, using shots like bird-eye view, wide angle, etc. Osamu Tezuka is a giant in Japanese manga history, for many years, no one can walk out of his shadow.
But Miyazaki did it. He exceeded Osamu Tezuka, because he is showing something different. As he said, his stories are not about fighting with weapons or magical power, although he is telling fantastic stories, he focuses on the real world.
Many of Miyazaki’s films are described as “fairy tales for adults”. They are telling stories happening in a strange world, on some nonexistent stages, but they make people think deeply about society and life. In Spirited Away, he is telling a story that a girl called Chihiro who lost in a strange world, how she find the way to go home. But in this story, many characters have their deep meaning, they are representing something, so as the plot.
In Spirited Away, the main conflict is certainly between individual person and the ambiguous society, or the viciousness in the society.
The story itself was about Chihiro and her parents enter a strange place in a sudden. Her parents were careless and greedy, they were not care about the host was there or not, just sat down and ate the food. The father said, he has cash and credit card, so it would be all right. In adults’ opinions, money is everything, can solve any problem. They think they can be so rude, because they have money. But money does not work always. They became pigs by the power of magic. Now, Chihiro must survive by herself, and find the way to survive her parents.
Then, Chihiro met many people ( or monsters ) and many things. We can see she is developing when going through this. In some plot, we can see these changes.
At first, Chihiro lied in the car lazily, had no curious on the new place where they were going to live in. She was worried about some little things, such as the first time receiving flowers is for the reason of leaving old friends, such as the flowers are getting withered in her hands. When they stopped at the big gate, her parents were going to get in, but she was feared. Parents told her to stay in the car to wait for them come back, but she was afraid of the smiling stone statue outside the gate, does not want to stay alone with the statue. When they walked in the gate way, Chihiro held her mother’s arm tightly. All these show that she was a young, weak, timid girl. She was depend on her parents so much. Her parents decided everything for her, even she was not happy about their decision, but she could not affect her parents’ opinion at all. We can see, she was not happy with moving to the new place, she was afraid to go into the gate, but her parents just did whatever they want. And, as Chihiro was depending on them so much, she could not ignore what her parents do and go her own way.
After that, her parents became pigs, she had to do everything herself. Although She met some people that helped her a lot, they were not helping her in the way that do everything for her. She need to face the problems herself.
This stage is like a young girl first get into the society, get away from the protection of parents, facing the society. As Miyazaki says, the society is mixed with kindness and viciousness. This kind of experience, just as many young people go through when they begin to survive with their own power.
We can see Chihiro was learning a lot. When the problem comes, Chihiro was trying to run away at first. She saw the world become strange at night, then tell herself “ it is a dream, it will disappear”. She cried, she begged the boy called Haku to stay with her, because she was afraid. Haku told her to go to the old man who has many hands. That time, she always put her hands in front of her breast, easy to be scared by any little things. When she talked to the old man, her voice was like shy. Rin said she was impolite, because she didn’t say thank you to the old man.
At this stage, Chihiro begin to struggle on her own, but she does not have strong spirit yet, and does not know how to communicate with people in a right way, seems impolite. She still try to rely on others, we can see this from some of her actions, such as asking Haku to stay with her, following Rin carefully.
And then, Chihiro grew up more. She faced Yubaba on her own, insist to ask for a job. She was getting braver. She was scared by the strange guest that looks like a kind of vegetable, but she still bow to him to say good bye when the lift reached the top level. Haku told her to go out and meet him at the bridge, she went out and passed the place of the old man, those black guys took out her shoes, she said “thank you” to them. Obviously, she was getting more polite.
Haku met her at the bridge, and brought her to her parents, gave her encouragement, and told her to remember her real name.
As the strange world is representing the ambiguous society, we can considered the “name” here also has special meaning. Yubaba controls people by taking away their names. Yubaba is like the viciousness in the society, when people have request from it, they will lost themselves. If people want to succeed, they must remember who they are, all they will get lost in the society and forgot the way home, control by the vicious forces forever.
From beginning to the end, the story is always focusing on Chihiro’s developing. Other characters, although they have their own meaning, but mostly are explaining the changes of Chihiro, or being a contrast as a opposite side to Chihiro.
For example, Haku is always helping Chihiro. With his help, Chihiro find her own name. Rin taught her to be polite, the old man taught her not to give up once she start doing something ( When Chihiro picked up the coal, she asked “What should I do with this? Put it on the ground?” The old man said, ” As you start, finish it to the end ” ). They help Chihiro to keep going, and also teach her a lot. That is why we can see Chihiro can solve so many problems, and learned so much.
On the other hand, the black man with a mask, is representing another kind of young people. He is lonely, desired for love. As Chihiro is friendly to him, even it is only opening the door for him in a rainy day. He is sensitive to Chihiro’s kindness, but also easy to be effect by the viciousness. What he learned is opposite from Chihiro, he learned all the bad things. But, as his motive was coming from his favorable impression to Chihiro, he is finally effected by Chihiro and become a kind person again.
In another aspect, we can also see Chihiro is the center of this story. From the cinematography. Miyazaki usually shows a long shot to tell us what is the situation, then a close up to focus on the reaction of Chihiro. It makes audience go with the story as a way “What’s going on? What will chihiro do?”keep asking these question in mind as a circle.
For example, when Chihiro went to the bridge to meet Haku, she saw that black man on the bridge. After crossing the bridge, the man disappeared. To show this little plot, Miyazaki first give us a long shot to show Chihiro was facing the bridge, and the man is standing on the bridge. Chihiro was running, but stopped at that time, then a medium shot to Chihiro, she was blinking and looks confused. Audiences would think, something has grabbed her attention, she is looking at something, what is that? Then a long shot to the black man, just as answering the question, she is looking at this. Then, Chihiro walk through the bridge. Normally, if he want to show the characters movement, using tracking would be good. But he didn’t. Still a long shot, the camera is still. Here, the black man is the situation, is about” What is going on”. To make the camera still, is actually showing the relationship between the “situation” and Chihiro.
