My favorite film of Studio Ghibli works is Spirited Away directed by Miyazaki Hayao. Recently I studied about this film deeply in my movie class.I didn’t like this movie. But after watching this in class, I changed my mind. I watched Spirited Away translated in English and because of that experience caused I found some interests in this movie.
Spirited Away is a film about a girl, Chihiros growing up, who is as being treated as Sen in Yu-Baba’s Yu-ya. In short, we can say this movie is a kind of juvenile. But this movie also has depth of the story. Especially, I was fascinated by a character, No-Face originally called Kao-Nashi. I can guess his name implies his lack of identity, his loneliness and his despair. Some of the audiences can imagine and define he is illustrated as a symbol of dark side of human being. In the latter half of this movie, eventually, he found his whereabouts in favor with Zeni-ba, Yuba-ba’s twin.
After I finished watching this movie in class, I found that Spirited Away shows us the growing up of two characters. One of them is a human, Chihiro who restored her name from a witch, Yuba-ba. And the other is a lonely spirit, No Face who found his whereabouts and job. This is a very little thing but we can recognize something changed in his mind that was full of negative elements.
I think it’s difficult to find wide-ranged diversity of this movie for young people because this movie looks just like a wonderful adventure of Chihiro. But, for adults, this movie would let them be refreshed with the power of Miyazaki and his many and many followers’ imagination. I think the relationship between Sen and Haku is well-illustrated with elegance too.
