- The fact is, films are made by adults. Sure, many of them feature children and some even envision kids (or rather, their indulgent parents) as their target audience, but the directors, writers, and production crew inevitably consist, for obvious reasons, exclusively of grown-ups. Consequently, I suspect that there's a tendency to depict a rather limited set of possible children's stories. Most films about childhood strike me as largely escapist fantasies (the Harry Potter series and basically every Disney movie), cathartic treatments of childhood trauma (The 400 Blows, Au Revoir, Les Enfants), or nostalgic looks back at an idyllic youth that probably never existed (Cinema Paradiso).
- Strange that Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away would be an exception to this rule, given that the film is obviously a fantasy. It is hardly escapist, however. When young Chihiro (Daveigh Chase) unexpectedly finds herself transported to a world that magically appears on the other side of an old tunnel, it's not as though her wishes suddenly start coming true. Instead, she faces a terrifying and confusing place where adults, human and otherwise, order her around for what seem like completely arbitrary reasons. Some, like the witch Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette) are just plain frightening. Others, like the spidery Kamajii (David Ogden Stiers) are mysterious. A boy named Haku (Jason Marsden) and a woman named Lin (Susan Egan) seem helpful enough, but the fact is that theirs is a universe populated with inscrutable and even occasionally malevolent spirits.
- To a child like Chihiro, however, such disorientation is hardly exclusive to the spirit world. One imagines that being forced to move to a new town with her rather self-involved and increasingly piggish parents (Lauren Holly and Michael Chiklis) would be as simultaneously strange and terrifying as any trip through the Japanese equivalent of Lewis Carroll's looking glass. Fortunately, the message of the film is that there is light at the end of the magical tunnel that is childhood. In the spirit world, simple acts of kindness such as assisting vivified dust motes, bathing repulsive stink spirits, and curing a "no-face" of his greed all carry great rewards. Gradually, Chihiro figures out the strange rules that govern this world of shape-shifting dragons, sebaceous radish spirits, and enormous babies. The experience, as whimsical, beautifully rendered, and creative as anything Miyazaki has yet made, is one that can help us all navigate through those moments when our own lives seem confusing, exciting, and frightening all at once. It's not a typical children's' film, and I could not be more thankful for that.
- As usual, I watched Disney's English dub.
