Spirited Away: The Beauty of Artistic Thievery

One would not expect an animated tale with a ten-foot obese baby, a bobblehead witch who runs a bathhouse, and masked, formless, faceless beings to resonate across a broad audience; yet each member of my family of movie connoisseurs, with all of our opposing opinions on film, appreciated the Studio Ghibli production of Spirited Away. Before the intrigue of the bizarre plot even takes hold, the animation and unique art form serve to please the eye of all ages.  Studio Ghibli uses a cartoonish, lighthearted style for the characters that entertains the younger audience and nods enough to the manga trend to satisfy the anime enthusiasts. While the animation and unconventional caricatures amuse the older viewers as well, the backdrops in the film have a painted appearance that earns appreciation from the artistically inclined. Other entertainment creators admire the expressive style demonstrated in Spirited Away, to the extent that Nintendo derived various scenes from the movie in their popular video game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The vibrant designs intrigue the eye, enticing the onlooker with the visual content.

Amid the mayhem of the tale, with all its seemingly random details and Asian architecture, lies a basic story structure, harkening back to the beginning of creation. When the protagonist, Chihiro, and her parents stumble upon an enchanted feast — the forbidden food — her parents devour the meal without restraint, thus enslaving themselves and their daughter to the witch Yubaba. This certainly is not the first narrative concerning the consumption of restricted food followed by a fall into bondage. Similarly, Chihiro’s adventures in the spirit bathhouse copy a well-known fairy tale storyline of a young, spoiled girl entrapped in an evil witch’s abode who must mature and work with newfound friends to escape. In essence, Spirited Away is a story already told, the threads of a story worth stealing to retell. It spins a tale of bondage to darkness, of the courage to resist the nefarious and twisted. A whimsical film, it draws in nostalgic elements from classic fairy tales, attaining a lighthearted, humorous tone. The concept of working at a bathhouse for weary supernatural beings does obscure the basic architecture of the fanciful plot. A boy who can turn into an iconic Japanese dragon, a boiler-man with six extendable arms, the giant germaphobic infant, and a trio of green, bodiless heads: all of the random characters and quirks disguise the film into something nearly new. In Spirited Away, Studio Ghibli recycles a resonating narrative outline, blending known thematic arcs with a tumult of extraneous details to enthrall viewers with an evocative masterpiece.     

The characters, with their internal development and relational dynamics, render the most poignant points of the movie. Chihiro appears on screen as a whiny, frightened girl, lost in a hostile realm after her parents’ folly. Her countenance gradually changes as she strives, with the aid of  Yubaba’s defiant servants such as Haku, Lin, and the boiler-man Kamaji, to free herself and her parents. A defining moment of her change occurs with the juxtaposition of her first reluctant, screaming descent down the steep staircase of the bathhouse compared to her choice later to dash across a high, crumbling pipe to rescue wounded Haku. These seeds of sacrifice uprooting Chihiro’s self-centered entitlement flash in numerous characters throughout the film, and the dominating theme of chosen self-sacrifice for loved ones highlights the contrast between narcissism and greed. The polars are constantly placed beside each other, whether with Haku’s immediate desire to protect Chihiro compared to Lin’s initial need of bribery before considering helping her, or Chihiro’s compassionate desire to help the agonized river spirit opposed to Yubaba’s underlying motives of greed when assisting the spirit.  

The continual comparison of these opposites culminates in Chihiro’s interactions with the infamous creature No Face. Studio Ghibli toys with the concept of freely given care without payment repercussions in relation to the blinded need to repay a debt through Chihiro’s compassion towards No Face when she lets him into the bathhouse and out of the rain. Without a category for a free, friendly gesture, No Face attempts to repay her by giving her all the bath tokens and appears puzzled when she doesn’t accept them. Later, when he feeds off the uncontrolled greed of the other occupants in the bathhouse, Chihiro’s refusal of the temptations that consume the other workers and her desire to help him instead leaves No Face baffled, insecure in his power, and obsessed with the peculiarly untainted girl. Chihiro’s acts of self-sacrifice and compassion in a realm where the driving motive is personal gain illuminate the gravity of selfless love. Along with her personal maturing, the thematic comparisons between the sacrificial and self-absorbed strengthen the resounding effect of the film. Spirited Away points to the value of sacrificial love, again echoing, if inadvertently, a major theme of previously impacting stories; it is the core of the single narrative that delivers real, resounding fulfillment.

Photo Credit

Syiemlieh, Evelyn.“What does the black spirit ‘No Face’ represent in Spirited Away?” Sportskeeda, www.sportskeeda.com/anime/what-black-spirit-no-face-represent-spirited-away