Of Creatures Wondrous and Worlds Enchanting - I

On the boundaries of my childhood territory was this ancient ruined temple. Silent coconut palms stood over fallen granite columns and abandoned moss covered stone idols. The temple tank was but a small hole in the ground, overgrown with weeds and laden with lily flowers during season. People seldom passed through the temple premises. One heard of spirits and sprites. Even the lone pujari seemed frightened of it—he used to come early in the morning and leave not soon after.

Now, if I had but a tenth of the imagination of the Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki, I would’ve grown up to write wonderfully enchanting magical tales about the place, full of woodland spirits and pagan Gods and friendly otherworldly creatures. But alas, I’m but an ignorant hack who hadn’t even heard of the master until yesterday—and then only because my nephew set up a Miyazaki marathon to take my mind off my pesky flu.

The first five minutes were enough for me to get completely addicted to the master’s movies. They made me laugh and cry and marvel at them all through. So without much further ado, here are the reviews.

Spirited Away (2001)

The first thing one notices about Miyazaki’s work is how detailed and lush it is. That the master still doesn’t work with CGI but personally draws thousands of frames of his movies is remarkable—on the other hand, the love for the craft is evident in every single texture, shape, and detail in the screen. The next thing one notices are the colors—all those shimmering, translucent, endless expanses of blues and greens and gold, interspersed with the more ominous blacks and grays and browns. Oh, it is rare visual treat indeed! And thankfully, no gratuitous 3D in here to mar the beauty of the traditional Japanese animation style. 

The third thing one notices (yeah, one notices a lot of things, like being exposed to Times Square for the first time) is the keen eye in capturing human postures and gestures (especially that of children) and the little touches (like people stumbling and the grazed knees and elbows of the protagonists as they go through the movie.)

The plot of Spirited Away is as layered and textured as the visual treatment.  On the surface, it is a coming of age tale of the 10-year old Chihiro, who has to abandon her childhood and become an adult in short order. It is also about friendship and heroism and little Miyazaki truisms such as “don’t start something if you can’t finish it” and environmentalism and a sharp comment on capitalism.

Chihiro is moving to a new town with her parents. She is not terribly happy about it. And to add to that, dad goes and gets lost on their drive there. They end up in a strange tunnel in the woods. Chihiro is terrified, but dad wants to go explore. Mom needs a little persuasion but she joins dad. (I just LOVED the way Chihiro stamps her feet here.)

They do enter the mysterious tunnel and end up in a place that looks a world apart on the other side. Dad thinks it is an abandoned theme park that went down with the bubble economy. They find rows and rows of restaurants. They reach a stall that has heaps of food but no attendant. Mom and dad settle to help themselves (Dad has credit cards, as he nonchalantly states before gobbling up food) but Chihiro wanders off to explore.

She comes upon a grand building across a bridge below which trains keep running up and down. Here she meets a young boy who identifies himself as Haku, who warns her to leave immediately before it gets dark. But twilight descends as Chihiro runs to get her parents, whizzing past lights coming to life and dark mysterious shapes creeping out everywhere.  To her horror, she finds that her parents have been turned into pigs and she is trapped in an enchanted world of ghosts and sorcerers and a river that fills up at night. Mysterious visitors come on a majestic barge across the river. Chihiro is caught in a bath house for 8 million gods, run by the witch Yubaba, who enslaves people by stealing their names. And Chihiro can get out only by working hard at the bath.

Such a turn of events would’ve daunted any other little girl—but gutsy Chihiro goes through her trials and tribulations with courage and common sense. She makes a lot of friends on her way, from the sooty Oompa-Loompa like workers at the boiler room to the six-armed cantankerous boiler man Kamaji, to the teenage Lin, to the mysterious No Face, to name a few. It emerges that she has strong values—she is not swayed by money but is a strong and loyal friend.

She breaks down for the first time half-way into the movie. And when those large tears form in those lovely Manga eyes and roll down her cheeks and she settles to have a good cry, you want to cry with her—surely such horrible things shouldn’t happen to a great girl like her!

But it turns out to be a minor setback for a girl who goes on to clean up the filthy river God single handedly. The most poignant and strong sequence in the movie begins when river God walks into the bath. Nobody recognizes him and everybody tries to flee the stench. Chihiro, with help from her friends, gives him a bath and finds something stuck in him deep. It turns out to be a bicycle, followed by a mountain of waste that gets dumped in a river. Rid of these, river God emerges pristine and happy. As a morality tale for children about environmental protection, I haven’t seen anything as memorable or absorbing as this whole sequence.

After much more of such enterprising behavior, she does emerge victoriously from the alternate world and saves her parents too. There is a bitter sweet parting with Haku who is obviously the love of her life, but not yet. Another beautiful moment happens when the two are sky diving and Chihiro’s tears flow upwards and you’d think those tears have the power to break spells. In Miyazaki’s world, love does have the power to break them.

A word about the voice actors—although I didn’t understand a word of what they were saying, I really enjoyed the sound of their talking.  

I have no doubt why this movie is the biggest ever grosser in Japan, even ahead of Titanic (made over $ 250 mill in box office.) Do watch it with your kids. If you don’t have any, watch it anyway. 

You can read the reviews of two other Miyazaki movies here.