SPIRITED AWAY

[ttangra]

Hi, I'm Tang.
I once kept a suspicious attitude toward Japanese films. For me, most of classic Japanese films seem quite gloomy and pessimistic. One exception is Hayao Miyazaki’s movies, which are always full of imagination, creativity and childlike innocence.

In the one and only SPIRITED AWAY, young girl Chihiro is forced to work in a bathhouse for spirits to save her parents. There are many symbols and metaphor for the bathhouse of course, but the most impressed 2 symbols are the No Face and the “Stink Spirit”. No Face represents many people who are struggling with loneliness and emptiness in the modern world. Some of them seek for power and money instead to make up for the loneliness and emptiness, but just end losing the respect from what they truly love and real happiness just like No Face does at first. The wound in the “Stink Spirit”, on the other hand, represents all the garbage and harm that human beings bring to the nature. It is us who bring harm to the nature and then to ourselves.

Another intriguing storyline is the pure love between Haku and Chihiro. Haku helps Chihiro from the very beginning because Haku realizes that he once has met Chihiro and this young girl may be a chance for him to remember his name again. But then, Haku and Chihiro just fall in love with each other and this pure love make them fight bravely for each other, even if they have to face dangers and difficulties.

After the journey in the bathhouse, Chihiro is no longer that childish, craven little girl she used to be. Instead, she changes to a brave girl who is capable of fighting for the ones she loves. She not only saves her parents, but also Haku.

[xueting]

Hi! I'm Xueting Zhang.

As one of my favorite movies, Spirited Away is a typical case that manages to convey philosophy of human or human life through incredible imagination!

There are numberless metaphors in this movie, for instance: Yubaba changes Chihiro's name into Sen, which makes Chihiro forget her name gradually - here, the "name" represents human's "nature" or "origin". So the lost of name is a metaphor of losing human nature, which alerts the audiences to keep their pure mind from being stained by lust when facing any kind of temptation. This makes me realize that we should always be authentic to ourselves and only in this way can we learn kind of bad potentials of our spirit and earn a chance to become a better person.

Furthermore, a magic image of love is set up based on the interactions between Chihiro and Haku. They've never met before, but they assist, sustain and even save each other without need for reward. And I have to say, it's the power of love. The movie accurately catch the essential of love and develop it into an unforgettable story. What an amazing job the director has done!

Besides, although the movie gives a series of implications of what always happen as a negative side of the human society, it does indicate a positive attitude that we should always hold towards life, which is extremely significant for us all.

I believe it must be very hard to create such a thoughtful but joyous movie, however, it was surely born! Terrific!

[Junyilyu]

Hi Mike!

This is the first time I watch this movie and I think its meaning is more than a cartoon for children. Everyone can learn something after watching this inspiring movie. For me, I saw human's weak points and shining points in this movie. The bathhouse is full of spirits in different shapes, which, from my perspective, are human beings with different personalities.

I can tell the disastrous result of being greedy: Chihiro's parents turn into pigs because of their edacity. The frog and his boss is eaten by no-face because of their avarice. But for Chihiro, a little girl with pure mind, no-face can do nothing about her. Master Haku is a kind guide to Chihiro, but he steals for some reason(I believe he is forced to commit that even though I haven't see the ending. I guess the reason will be clear then). Besides, he cannot remember his name. Therefore, he is a symbol of being lost.

Sometimes in our lives, we find ourselves getting lost, stoping moving forward or maybe making some mistakes. It is okay to have these moments as long as we cheer up and go back to the right way again. In that part, Chihiro becomes the guide to Haku, she chooses to return the treasure stolen by Haku to its owner to save his life. I guess we do need help from our friends or families to keep moving. Yubaba's baby is another symbol. I think it represents a spoiled child who dares not to make its own step to see the world out side, but the baby changes to a braver one by joining the adventure of Chihiro.

Above all, Chihiro has human's shining points--she is honest, unselfish, warm-hearted and polite. Moreover she herself grows up from a timid little girl to someone who can shoulder more responsibilities to her family and friends during the whole adventure. So in reality, we need to let the "Chihiro" in our heart stand out when we meet some bad situations and problems.

Junyi Lyu (Lyra)

[xyweng]

Hi, I’m Sylvie (Xiaoyu Weng).

I've seen this film about 7 or 8 years ago and it still dazzles me when I watch it this week at class.

The bathhouse for spirits is a fancy magnificent place which I assume symbolizes the Japanese society and each character in the bathhouse represents a certain hierarchy. For example, the owner Yubaba symbolizes capitalists, those spirits who come as customers represent people who indulge themselves in pleasure and comfort, frogs who work in the bathhouse may stand for those greedy lower-class.

Haku helps Chihiro because he saved her life long time ago when she fell into the Kohaku River. This experience set a mysterious bind between them so Haku could know Chihiro’s name when they met and felt connected with her.

We could easily witness Chihiro’s change throughout her adventure. By bathing the River Spirit, calming the facelss man, saving Haku, finding Zeniba and negotiating with Yubaba, she is no longer that sensitive crying little girl and turns into a brave, caring and strong-minded person who is ready to embrace her new life.

Spirited away is a fairytale for both children and adults. Just like Miyazaki’s other works, he creates a wonderful story with his wild imagination. Yet the audience could still feel the warmth of innocence and the power of growth through a little girl’s adventure. The way that Chihiro finds her name symbols retrieving the precious things of one's life, such as your memory or your ambitions. These are the things that could lead us through all the time.

[Amber]

Hi, I am Tianqi.

Personally speaking, I do not watch a lot of cartoons because I always believe they are designed for children. However, Spirited Away is beyond my imagination, and it makes me believe that cartoon is just a genre of movie with which producers are able to reflect reality even if plots and characters are fiction.

Take the bathhouse for example, to me, the entire bathhouse is a reflection of modern society. There is clear hierarchy in the bathhouse with Yubaba as the leader and everyone has to obey her words. It is very much like a monarchy society where an absolute power exists. It is true that monarchy does not exist any more, but variants of monarchy are there. For example, in a family, sometimes father plays the role of absolute power and everyone else has to obey him.

What’s more, people’s desire for gold in bathhouse is an exact reflection of greed nature of human beings.There is a plot in the movie that leaves me a deep impression when people in bathhouse are scared of the monster at the very beginning and no one is willing to service him. But when the monster gives out gold, they just cannot wait to do so. It indicates people’s sick desire for money nowadays, and money can change their attitude towards things so easily.

Therefore basically speaking, characters and plots of this movie are all imaginary, but they are so real at the same time, because the bathhouse has similar features of modern society, and I believe everyone can find themselves or parts of themselves in the bathhouse.

[jacqueline]

A: Without doubt, this masterpiece is the most successful one of Miyazaki Hayao. I saw Spirited Away when I was in high school but I couldn't quite understand why the public thought highly of it actually. I considered it not much different from that of Mr. Miyazaki's previous works. Thanks to Mike, I got a chance to watch this movie again which inspired me really.

Every character in Spirited Away can represent any of us in real life. Chihiro, feeling lonely, helpless and rejected to accept anything strange in the very beginning, just like what all of us must have experienced more or less in life. But she also has something that many of us don't have- courage, faith and love. Her parents displayed another important aspect of humanity- greed. Mr. Miyazaki's told the audience a cliche in a vivid way: it takes you three seconds to fall into greed and it might cost you three years to get rid of its shadow, just as how easy Chihiro's parents were turned into pigs and how difficult for Her to drag them back into real world. He also gave the audience faith, however, which is represented as Chihiro.

Finding out her parents were turned into pigs, instead of freaking out, Chihiro never gave up. We can't blame parents for always hoping us to follow the path they set for us, they were brought up at the time that considers getting a stable job to be successful. Thus sometimes they seem to be snobbery. When they are gone, we may have only friends to rely on though we (at least most Asian children) are taught not to fully trust anyone but your family. Chihiro doesn't follow the cliche anyway, when she met Haku, she choose to believe, which turned out to be worthy. Life is a journey just as Chihiro has her own journey at the end of the movie. The one who got to the very end of the journey was totally a different but more mature one from the one that set off.

What Mr. Miyazaki tried to tell the audience in the movie seems to be kinda old-school, it worked anyway. After all, all of us are never too grown up to be a better person.

Jacqueline
07/09/2015

[chenyuer1118]

Hello! My name is YUER(Jessica) CHEN. Actually I have never watched this movie before, which is quite unusual I think. But I did watched another film from the same director Miyazaki Hayao called Howl's Moving Castle and I do think they are quite similar in terms of style and story. Although I have never wathced the full movie but I did have watched several parts of it in Japanese with Chinese subtitle. I think that this movie which is entirely based on East Asian culture, does contain certain different meaning while translated into English. The most significant proof of this that I can remember is that when someone in the movie said that it is love that is arised between Chihiro and Haku. However, in any version of this film in East Asia countries, it is not translated into "love" but "feeling" or "emotion". Therefore, the relationship between the two characters are quite subtle.

Also, I do think that the soundtrack of this film is particularly worth mentioning. When the story proceeds to be quite intense then the music turns to be exciting energetic. I also think that the sound of actions within the film is quite tricky and interesting. For example, when the River Spirit first came into the bath, he was very dirty and with dirty mud and smelly marcus on his body. I think my description came largely from the sound of each action he made. I really like the way soundtrack and music is used in this film particularly.

Overall, I think this is a very good movie. Not only in terms of its story/plot which portrayed something very touching to the audience but also how every character and/or plots are shaped in the film. Thanks!

[Huanlin]

Describe the bathhouse for spirits and its many symbols
I believe the bathhouse represents the society. Through some of the characters, we can see the dark side of humanities. First, I believe Yubaba stands for snobbish. At the beginning, she was really mean to Chihiro, commanded her to clean up the dirtiest bathroom and greet the guess that nobody wanted to deal with. However, after she found that Chihiro satisfied the filthy guest, which turned out to be the river spirit and paid a lot of gold, she told everyone that they should all learn from Chihiro. Also, Yubaba’s snobbish attitude could be examined by her attitude toward Haku. Once Haku was hurt, Yubaba wanted to get rid of him and even complained about Haku’s blood staining her room.

Second, most of the staffs represent the greediness and. They only want to please rich customers, begging for gold and that was how they were tricked by No-Face. On the other hand, they ignored and ran from the filthy ones, like the river spirit. Ironically, when one judges another only by his appearance, the decision could always be wrong. The stinky river spirit is actually the rich and powerful one, while the generous No-Face is a monster.

Third, I think No-Face means the loneliness and emptiness of many people. At first, No-Face was kind of invisible, represented that his lack of existent. However with money and power, everyone started to greet him nicely. His body became bigger and was not invisible anymore. I think this means that ones wealth and authority can bring you existence in the society, however it would also change who you really are. Later, No-Face was lost and upset and started to eat other characters. Money and power didn’t ease his loneliness and didn’t get him the company he truly wanted.

We can also find some social problems through the film. Aside from snobbish, Yubaba has another strong personality – a monster parent, which means that she spoils her child too much, not knowing what really is the best the child, and not knowing her child well. She kept her baby in the room because she’s afraid that he would get hurt or sick if he goes out, however this is actually toxic for the child. Also, she thought she loved her baby, but when he was turned into a mouse, she couldn’t even recognize him, meaning that she didn’t truly spend time with and understand her child.

The river spirit stood for another social problem – nature pollution. River spirit turned into a stink spirit because all the garbage thrown and the pollution made by human. Chihiro and others pulled out garbage such as bike, fishing tackle, and so on out of the spirit. These things represent the trash under the river.

However, there are also some positive sides of humanities represented in the bathhouse. For example, selfless Kamajii helped Chihiro by telling her how to get a job and he also put a blanket on Chihiro while she was asleep. More importantly, he gave his train ticket to Chihiro. Before he did that, we heard Rin said that one day she would get on the train and get out of the bathhouse, meaning the train ticket is very precious. Kamajii gave it to Chihiro without regret and he also took care of sick Haku.

Why does Haku helped Chihiro
Haku came into this world by accident just like Chihiro did. He forgot his name and thus forgot who he truly was. Thus when Chihiro came, he did his best to prevent the same tragedy happening again on her. Also, I believe they helped each other because of their love toward each other.

How does Chihiro changed by the end of the story?
I think she became more active, selfless and grateful at the end. When she first came to the world, she was scared thus she ran to the river, crouching by the river and cried until Haku came to help. Later, even though there are other challenges and she would still cry, the crying time gradually reduced. Also, when Haku first told Chihiro to go find Kamajii, she was afraid to walk down the stairs. But later, when she was trying to rescue Haku, she ran along the dangerous pipes and climbed up the midair stairs. These actions showed that she became more active when facing challenges. As for the selfless part, at first, she ran away with fear when she saw her parents turning into pigs. But later, she tried to help Haku even if it was dangerous too her. She also gave the river spirit’s present, the one she wanted to save for saving her parents, to Haku and No-Face in order to help them. Last, I think she became more grateful to everyone. She learned manners from Rin and her adventure.

Write a setup/opinion of spirited away
I think one of the main topic the director tried to discuss through the movie is to compare the selfish behaviors with the selfless ones. The selfless behaviors may not always be rewarded, for example, Kamajii and Rin’s lives didn’t change much after they helped Chihiro. However, the selfish and greedy ones will always bring some kind of retribution. For example, Chihiro’s parents were turned into pigs, the staffs were eaten by No-Face, Yubaba’s baby was turned into a mouse and so on.

It is also a story about becoming a better person. Aside of Chihiro’s growth, Yubaba’s baby also became a better person. At first, he would only cry for his mom and stayed in his room. However, he later came out of the room, this represented him walking out from the over-protection of Yubaba. The baby was afraid of germs at the beginning, but he later bit No-Face just to protect Chihiro. At the end, he even stood out for Chihiro against Yubaba.

I like this movie really much. Though I’ve watched it for many times, there are always new hints that I can find every time I rewatch it and learn from these fables. It’s also fun to learn not only the concept, but English from this movie.

Huan

[wenhuizhu]

Chihiro is a film, telling a story of growth, love and nature. Everyone can get various understanding of it. Form my perspective, Chihiro is a reflection of the whole life and the realistic world.

Chihiro represents all young people who enter the society recently. They try to do everything to their best but always awkwardly. Besides, there are always some detours in life that tempt them to try to cut corners as they run toward their goals but these shortcuts will only get them off track. And they may lose themselves, like Chihiro lost her name in the film. In the film, name was their self-contract. Once the names were deprived, they would also lose their own spirit. The only way to avoid this is to remember their names and they could become themselves again. It tells that everyone should always keep an initiative heart.

Chihiro is also a film about growth. At the very beginning, Chihiro was a timid girl, grabbing her mother’s hands tightly in the cave and liked crying, without the sense of responsibility. But after experiencing so much, she became mature, strong and considerate. Most importantly, she was a pure girl with a baby heart, so she could save Haku, No Face and her parents in face of challenges and temptation.

No Face, actually, is a perfect portrayal of modern people, lonely, empty, using people’s greedy desire to be impressive. So he became a mendacious self. Only when he disgorged everything he swallowed before, he could come back to himself.

At last, the relationship between Haku and Chihiro is magic. Maybe every encounter is a meet after a long separation.


---Wenhui

[zhang]

As many people have mentioned, the bathhouse for spirits epitomizes the society of our mundane world. What intrigues me most is not that for every spirit there is one kind of people they represent for, but that in every different spirit I can see a piece of myself, or more precisely, a piece of everyone.

Like Yubaba, we can be utilitarianists and measure things in a snobbish way. Yubaba is an old woman in the film. And actually when we getting older, we seem to lose the ability to value people and things through a more spiritual or subtle lens. Moreover, money and power intoxicate us, making utility a convenient way of life. And many staffs in the bathhouse play a trivial role, as most ordinary and unknown people. They are equipped with both defects and merits, and they may be not even conscious of the qualities that persistently influence them and shape them.

We can also be the No-face. To some degree, we are lonely in essence. However, sometimes we are controlled by some negative loneliness and emptiness. For example, like No-face in the movie failed to knowing how to love and satisfy Chihiro, we could be really clumsy in love, making the assumption that whatever we give is a part of what others need. And we are so vulnerable that when the attempt of getting closer to the loved is frustrated, it turns into rage.
Control loneliness, or loneliness to control.

Fortunately, I think we are all Chihiro in nature, having the tremendous potential of growth. And by giving love, we obtain it; by self-dependence, we explore ourselves.

--Yang Zhang