Spirited Away: A Beautiful Memory from the Master of Love
Apart from my family, there is perhaps no greater influence on my childhood than Walt Disney. Funny enough, this is because of family. My dad worked for the Walt Disney Company for a number of years, beginning at the park and eventually moving to the amber-colored palaces that make up Walt Disney Studios. His role was technical, not creative, yet that didn’t stop him from bringing home posters, mementos, and memorabilia related to the various films, shows, and stories that the Disney brand was responsible for creating and distributing.
As a result, my brother and I grew up in a house where stories were framed on the walls and movies felt as if they were a part of our everyday lives. The richness of my childhood was partially there because of the daring creativity of Walt Disney and his unguarded imagination.
Growing up is hard; that said, there are a plethora of people who endured more tumultuous circumstances than myself. Yet, for every current and former child, adolescent, and teenager, we all encounter the same question at varying beats in our life: What does it mean to ‘grow up’? What serves as the pivot from childhood to adulthood? Is it added responsibility, financial independence, the introduction of romance? Or is it something more arcane?
For me, the truth is convoluted, and in moments of isolation, I thought I was alone in attempting to answer an unanswerable question. Then, during my freshman year of college, a classmate of mine was reading through an article that ranked the movies of a Japanese director that I was, at the time, unfamiliar with.
Little did I know that it was this alluded-to visionary, a versatile storyteller with a transcendent body of work, that would provide me with a dose of insight for the introspective questions that were wandering through my mind.
I was roughly 7 the first time I watched Spirited Away. Actually, scratch that: I was 7 the first time I watched the first 15 minutes of Spirited Away. The reason for this? Well, 15 minutes is more or less the timestamp where Chihiro’s gluttonous parents are magically morphed into grotesque pig creatures (I’d take out the word ‘creature’ and just use ‘pig’, but my memory of this moment is so vivid that my mind extrapolated the size and hideousness of the swine to epic proportions).
It’s a haunting memory, one I still squirm at when I think about it. But I think that’s the intention of Hayao Miyazaki, in every one of his projects. His endgame isn’t to necessarily disgust me, but it is to instill a feeling of remembrance. To leave his audience with images that will occupy space in our minds for eternity.
Some of these images he leaves us with are dark (pig creatures), and some of them are much brighter. Spirited Away is ripe with moments of beauty: the opening car ride, the discovery of the ‘abandoned’ amusement park, the flight of Chihiro and Haku, and yes, the meandering, relatable loneliness of No-Face.
What makes the film great? The artistry, the attention to detail, the imagination that is so methodically strewn throughout, making for a concise masterpiece in story-building and character development. But these are mesmerizing elements substantiating a timeless work of art.
What is the story’s true message?
One central thread is the idea that love is ubiquitous, though it is not always romantic in nature. Quite clearly, Chihiro’s and Haku’s relationship underscores this truth. Additionally, the story elevates a number of Shinto principles and teachings via several conveyances. The character of No-Face is the embodiment of Shinto teachings, progressing through clear evolutions of greed, kindness, and purpose, often in similar ways to his human companion. Shinto guidance is a partially-abandoned philosophy, compliments of the digital age, resulting in a ‘stink’ attributed to humanity that is clearly addressed (and fittingly dealt with) in the film.
Thus, we have our first piece of the message: the importance, and fragility, of the natural world. Earth provides us with life, existence, the opportunity to thrive. It’s easy to think of such gifts as ‘givens’ rather than luxuries. Yet my mom always says, “When someone gives you a gift, thanking them is not an option, but a responsibility.” We don’t owe the natural world a price, but we do owe it our thanks. We owe it respect, and for the sake of including some more motherly wisdom here, actions always speak louder than words.
There is then the concept of love, which is at the soul of Spirited Away. This is not a love engrained in romance, but in kindness. Chihiro loves Haku, but that love stems from purity, not lustful greed. Such love is personified by her actions to help Haku when he is ill; Haku helped Chihiro earlier by stealthily shuttling her to the bathhouse and directing her to the Boiler Master for support.
Love comes in so many forms: physical, emotional, verbal, written. But when dissected to its purest state, to love someone is to care for them, and to love something is to care for it.
Thus, in thinking back to my initial (brief) viewing of Spirited Away, and my subsequent ‘rewatch’ of the masterpiece a handful of years later, it’s quite fitting that I’m reminded of the dark and bright memories that the film left me with on each occurrence. Why?
Because it demonstrates my own evolution, one not identical to Chihiro’s in detail, but an evolution that is similar in scope.
Walt Disney’s filmography tugged at my heartstrings as a kid; truthfully, much of his work still has a direct line to my emotional subsystem. For that, I am forever grateful, because he made me a kid for life; perhaps not in look, but certainly in imagination.
Yet, in referencing him here, please do not think that I am comparing him to Hayao Miyazaki, for while each of these artists found their success in animation, they went about attaining such success in deliberately unique ways.
Disney touches my heart, but Miyazaki touches my soul, and no work of Miyazaki’s does this more than Spirited Away. His film is a conduit for memory-making, providing escapes into worlds saturated with horror and poignancy, joy and suspense, wonder and imagination.
In totality, his many films are religious experiences comprising an exclusive subsection of cinema. They serve as kaleidoscopes of youth, the mind, and yes, of growing up.
I don’t think I’m done growing up, which is kind of childish to say, I guess. Though, it’s not because I’m immature in nature or activity; rather, it’s because I define ‘growing up’ as a metaphysical metamorphosis, one that perpetually takes place throughout a person’s life.
We are most fragile in our youth, thus making us the most valuable version of ourselves. Yet, we never stop growing, stop learning, stop paying our respects for the gifts we’ve been given by life and the natural world, stop appreciating the love we experience and enjoy.
Perhaps this comes across as a romantic perspective, but let me ask you this: how can one not help but feel this way after exposing their mind to the wonderment of Miyazaki, the Master of Love, and his vivid, haunting, hopeful exploration of humanity?
That is what this story teaches me.
