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Spirited Away (2001)

I previously watched this film on Netflix back in 2024 but with an opportunity to watch it again on the big screen, I felt like I couldn't miss the chance. The set up is pretty straight forward but there are parts of the film that are anything but. Chihiro and her parents are moving when they come across an abandoned amusement park and after pigging out on what appears to be food in this clearly abandoned area, they are turned into pigs and the rest of the film is about trying to help her parents.

The first 30-40 minutes are really good and the final 30 minutes is really good but the middle is where the film really is confusing as to what is actually going on. Despite not knowing what is really going on at times, it never felt like weird things were happening just for the sake of things. This may be a case of something being lost in translation but I think things would have made more sense if I had watched this when it originally came out or grew up with this kind of cinema. I was never bored despite the running time being around two hours and that is a good sign the film worked. The film works as well as it does because the character of Chihiro is rather charming. She starts off as a typical child but by the end of the film she becomes a much stronger individual even though she has been through a lot and seen a lot and also has pretty much lost her boyfriend and seems ok with it. I know the idea is that they would meet up outside of the film but I still think that they don't stay together at the end of the film was a pretty sad note to finish the film.

I liked Spirited Away a lot more than the first time I watched it. I think the animation is like all Miyazaki films and that is beautiful. I don't normally stay as the credits are rolling usually because without being too crude nature calls, but this time I stayed because the song that was being played was beautiful and we got stills of various scenes from throughout the film. I think that had the film been about 20-30 minutes shorter then the film would have connected with me a lot more than it did.

 

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