My third favorite and most recent film. Directed and written by Hayao Miyazaki released in July 2001 spirited away is a tale about a little girl who wanders into a land full of spirits and gods. No surprise here Miyazaki usually uses a young girl as the heroine to his stories...generally in disarray and surrounded by something chaotic.
The story starts out with a small family of three. An over manly father, a little dainty wife and their little girl. The father apparently got a new job in a new town so the family just got uprooted and moved. They apparently get lost trying to find their new home...and imagine that the father decides to take a path through the woods that he thought was a shortcut....He starts to drive faster and faster until he has to slam on the breaks to avoid hitting a statue.
The statue is is front of the entrance to a tunnel...a tunnel that leads to an abandoned amusement park. Its truly a beautiful place. The adults decide to explore while the little girl screams in protest. Eventually they start walking down a street with vending shops on either side. There is no one around, but food is laid out on counters. The adults start to stuff themselves with no regard, but the little girl does not want to anything to do with the food. Her parents wont hear anything of it and they keep eating and eating the father even says "Don't worry Daddy's got cash and credit cards."...how American of him. The little girls goes off to investigate a while more. She discovers a bridge leading to a large building, and there is smoke billowing out a large stack. There she meets another boy, who looks human, who tells her "You shouldn't be here" ...she goes back to find her parents have turned into large pigs and there are odd spirits working all of the little shops. There are lights being light and the sun is setting...the little girl, Chihiro, races back to the tunnel but there is a vast sea of water separating her from the human world.
Chihiro starts to freak out and begins to turn transparent. The boy she met earlier, Haku, appears to help her by giving her a small piece of food form the spirit world.
Chihiro has wandered into the world of the spirits, more specifically a bath house where spirits of all sorts are able to rejuvenate. If she wants to stay in the spirit world she must get a job at the bathhouse, which is owned by a very mean witch named Yubaba. Chihiro has to sign her name away in order to get the job, everyone who works for Yubaba has to sign their name away...that is how they are all controlled.
Chihiro has a few minor adventures after that....she lets in a mysterious spirit called "no face", she frees a great river spirit from pollution and she falls in love with Haku. Eventually she even gets her parents back, they of course have no idea what happened during the time they were pigs.
