Spirited Away is Japanise animated film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. After its release in 2001 it became the most successful film in the Japanise history. The films genre is animated fantasy. Almost every animated film by Miyazaki is hand-drawn, which makes people appreciate his work more than if he used computer.
I’ve always loved Miyazaki’s films, but Spirited Away became my favorite when I heard that the story isn’t really what it seems to be. Like Miyazaki’s other story My Neighbor Totoro, the whole story is a metaphor for something more sullen than a cute children’s movie that it looks like. Miyazaki told in his interview that he had been tackling the issue of the sex industry rapidly growing in Japan and that children being exposed to it at such an early age is a problem. The bathhouse in Spirited Away is actually a metaphor for brothel. There are many details in the movie which support the hidden story.
The plot is about a ten-year-old girl named Chihiro, who ends up to a spirit world. She and her parents are on their way to their new home when her dad takes the wrong turn and they accidentally enter a whole different world. Chihiro’s parents get turned into pigs by witch named Yubaba after eating food that was ment for gods. Trapped in a spirit world, Chihiro meets a young boy, Haku, who helps her to get a job from a bathhouse that Yubaba runs. Yubaba gives Chihiro a new name: Sen. Haku warns Sen that Yubaba controls people by taking their names and that if she forgets her real name, she will never be able to leave the spirit world. Chihiro has to work for Yubaba to not fade away and to find a way to free herself and her parents and then return to the human world.
The soundtrack of Spirited away was composed by Miyazaki’s regular collaborator Joe Hisaishi. The soundtrack has received many awards.
Here is a link to a song named Always With Me from the Spirited Away.