The Studio Ghibli Retrospective Spirited Away. Nothing sad happens in the opening fifteen minutes of Hayao Miyazakis eighth feature film Spirited Away. Nothing really even happens until the very end of the opening, where a traumatic event occurs to our protagonist that will change her life forever, but it does not and is not meant to inspire grief. Nothing sad happens in the opening fifteen minutes of Hayao Miyazakis eighth feature film Spirited Away. Nothing really even happens until the very end of the. Action Figures, Toys, Bobble Heads, Gifts, and Collectibles. Mint Condition Guaranteed, 90Day Hassle Free Returns, Low Price Guarantee, Risk Free Shopping, Thousands. So why, exactly, do I always find myself tearing up whenever this film simply does what all movies do and begin The reason why is because to watch Spirited Away feels like a special gift. It is a film of such startling imagination, originality, intelligence, and emotion that I feel inexplicable joy when the opening title card fades in as Joe Hisaiashis rapturous score starts to play. Theres the oft debated difference between the favorite and the best. I already mentioned that Kikis Delivery Service is my personal favorite of Miyazakis filmography, as it is his most delightful film and the one that most resonates with me on a very personal level. Theres no doubt in my mind, however, that Spirited Away is his most remarkable accomplishment, and his best film in general. To see this film is to be transported to a world you can not find anywhere else, and I feel simply overjoyed whenever I have the chance to watch it again. ZxvKkKhDnAs/hqdefault.jpg' alt='Watch Online Watch My Neighbor Totoro Full Movie Online Film' title='Watch Online Watch My Neighbor Totoro Full Movie Online Film' />The film iswhat elsea coming of age story centered on a young girl named Chihiro, whos really bummed out about moving to a new city where she wont be able to be with her old friends. Her mother and father, who mean well but still shrug off her depression, are ready to move into their new home when a wrong turn on the road leads them to a mysterious, abandoned theme park. Or so they think. It turns out that the family has stumbled upon a passage to the spirit world, with Chihiros parents transformed into livestock after unknowingly consuming the food of the spirits without permission. Watch Shanghai Kiss Online Shanghai Kiss Full Movie Online here. Frightened and utterly alone, the only way for Chihiro to survive in this strange new world is to toil and work herself raw in a bathhouse run by a wicked sorceress. Its a story rife with familiar influences, from Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland to Japanese folklore and, of course, Studio Ghiblis now expected coming of age elements. But never has a film been so visually alive and imaginative that you cant recall anything else like it. Greetings andor salutations, people Welcome to io9s occasionally weekly mail column, where I solve the mysteries of the world of nerddom to you, both fictional. Find your favorite Disney movies available now or preorder on Bluray disc, DVD, and download to watch any time. The more I think about it, the more I believe that Kikis Delivery Service might be my favorite Miyazaki film. This is considered somewhat of a minority opinion, as. And still, to this day, unlike most other visually revolutionary films, its singular style has still not been ripped off after a decade. And how can you Theres always been instances of strangeness in Hayao Miyazakis visuals and this becomes broader when we take into account the other Ghibli films he didnt direct, but Spirited Away is, visually speaking, his most unapologetically weird. Not a single idea regarding this films world and characters feels borrowed or repurposed. Just when you think the film couldnt possibly top itself with an impossibly, beautifully strange image, it gives you something more the ferry that holds within it colored sheets with eerie paper masks over their heads, the overweight radish person, the old man with multiple arms that can stretch to any length he wants, the giant duck thing thats there for no reason, that iconic No Face with his vacant mask and ominous black presence, the stink god made up of the pollution of the rivers which brings up Miyazakis prominent theme of environmentalism, a lamppost that hops around on a single disembodied handI could go on for another paragraph if I wanted. And its all contained in this immaculately drawn and delightfully mysterious bathhouse, a perfect backdrop for this cavalcade of delightfully bizarre spirits, which Miyazaki has stated in interviews was inspired by an actual bathhouse in his childhood hometown that he imagined to be haunted and contain a multitude of secrets. The bathhouse of Spirited Away, despite being only one building, is itself a whole other world, and not just because of the strange spirits that inhabit it. Its design is so meticulous and fully realized stairways with no railings pose imminent danger elevators are strung up to a multitude of floors that suggest that the building is bigger on the inside than out secret compartments allow employees to send messages to the crazy old spider guy who lives in the furnace and even more details that dont necessarily need to be in the movie, but further envelop the viewer in its surreal dimension. Watching Spirited Away for the first and perhaps second and third time, its so easy to lose yourself in Miyazakis spirit world that it becomes even easier to ignore, or at least underappreciate, not just the beautiful simplicity of its story, but how within that simplicity is packed a multitude of themes that run the gamut from psychological to sociological. The main conflict we get here is Chihiros journey to escape the clutches of Yubaba the sorceress, bring her now transformed pig parents back to their original selves, and escape the spirit world. Along the way, she learns to mature and come of  age, which should be enough for any reader regularly following this retrospective to give a resounding Duh because Miyazaki. But the real detail of interest here, one simple detail that contains a multitude of meanings, is how Chihiros coming of age is also a quest to preserve her identity. Upon agreeing to work in Yubabas bathhouse, the sorceress literally steals Chihiros name and changes it to Sen. This is revealed to be how Yubaba imprisons peoples souls to working in her bathhouse forever she steals away the identities of her workers and gives them more suitable names. These names tend to be more simplifiedSen, Haku, Lin, to name a fewthus sucking away the instances of verbal personality in them for something that is more functional and quick to saywrite. Watch Comes A Bright Day Online Free HD here. Sometimes we just want to learn the meaning of life from talking animals. These are the best animated movies of all time. Once your name is stolen, you slowly lose your memories of the person you once were, which will be important for Chihiro as she must be true to herself in order to escape this alien world. I have seen Spirited Away countless times ever since it released on DVD and aired somewhat regularly on Cartoon Network for a couple of years. I know this film by heart, and have seen both the Japanese and terrifically directed English dub multiple times. But it wasnt until rewatching the film for this retrospective that I finally decided to look beyond its sumptuous surface and find a web of ideas that I had never even thought of before lurking underneath. Namely Spirited Away is actually a workplace drama. When you get right down to it, once ChihiroSen has started working at the bathhouse, while her concerns of escaping are always her primary goal, new conflicts arise to accommodate to the strange new rules of not just the spirit world, but of the workers world. Chihiro is chastised and harassed by her superiors because she is a human, so she experiences racism firsthand. She and her female coworker Lin are mistreated by their male coworkers, so theres not only sexism, but even implications of sexual harassment as they make catcalls to the ladies. All the while, each of the workersmale or female, spirit or humanhave been robbed of their individuality, each one reduced to a homogenized resource by way of giving them all similar appearances. Kitchen Nightmares Season 6 Episode 6 here. Not just in uniform but in physical structure too, as most of the males have deformed, large, frog like faces, while the women are overly slender and shiny like stretched up putty. In other words similar in essence to any regular old workplace in real life, the only difference being the fantasy elements. In a way, the bathhouse of the spirits is like some kind of mini dystopia, not just in how it depicts a society in which the workers are content but unfulfilled as theyre forced to literally serve and pleasure the gods, but also in how it connects these themes to very real problems in our current workplace society.