Spirited Away Film Review

1) Provide a description of the film. Discuss the plot and characters and how they influenced the film. Was the plot line or character development more important? Why?

Spirited Away, directed and written by Hayao Miyazaki is an animated film about a young Japanese girl, Chihiro, who stumbles upon a world of spirits and their bath house. Being the only human in this spirit world, she goes on a mission to rescue her parents. Along the way of fighting off evil spirits, like Yubaba and No Face, working in the bath house and for Kamajii, and eventually saving her parents, she develops friends along the way like Haku and Lin. For this particular film, I think that the plot line is what made the film more interesting, and therefore more important. The plot was super developed and had many creative twists and events that it kept the viewer engaged the entire time. Even though Chihiro’s progression as a character was important, the progression of the plot is what makes this film so successful.

2) Think critically about how the film was shot, directed, use of lighting, etc. What do you think was effective in the making of the film? What took away or could have been done differently to enhance the film?

I think that the choice to animate this film was very smart. By creating these outrageous spirits that have the ability to do the most unbelievable things, animation helps make the whole situation more dreamlike, which matches the film. If the film was acted out with actors, it would have been a lot different because it would have had to have a lot of special effects, and probably would not have been executed as well as the animation. Also, the music enhances and sound effects helped enhance the film because it added to the suspense and action.

3) What is your overall opinion of the film? Would you recommend it? Why/why not?

I absolutely love this movie. I saw it for the first time after it came out when I was younger, and think it is just a really neat film. I’m a fan other Miyazaki’s other movies because he has such an ability for creating such intricate fantasy worlds. Just watching the movie transports the viewer into this crazy world, and it’s really fun to be able to go there. Because of this, I would recommend this movie o others because it’s a really neat and fantastic movie. There are very few movies like it that I’ve seen before, so I think it’s definitely worth watching.