Spirited Away Review - Adaptation Film Screening

Fig 1. Spirited Away Theatrical Release Poster

A heavy hitter in the feature length anime film industry, 'Spirited Away' created by Studio Ghibli's Hiyao Miyazaki, is an adventure of boundless imagination, surrealism in anime form and until recently the highest grossing anime film of all time. It is a Japanese film at its core of course, and its animation style is the flux of 2D and 3D designs into one swift movement. It is another one of Studio Ghibli's successes in the competition, a production company that has a vast catalog of awe inspiring content; from 'Castle in the sky' to 'When Marnie was there'. 

Fig 2. The Bridge

It is the story of a ten-year-old girl named Chihro, on the way to her new home, her family visit a strange and mysterious tunnel that leads to a secret world filled with bizarre wonders. Her parents undergo a transformation and Chihiro must fend for herself as she learns to live beside spirits and all manners of strange creatures. Her quest is simple, to revert the form of her parents but her path is clouded with uncertainty and danger.

The animation produced for the audience is undeniably painstaking to complete, usually there is a tendency to simplify certain visuals to ease the burden. But the studio's efforts offer the audience complexity. The background is filled with intricate workings and the animation works to make the film fluid instead of being trapped within a frame. The scenes are created frame by frame and the use of computers was deployed to help with the workload. Miyazaki began his career in this artstyle, he works in key with realism and has personally commissioned thousands of frames by hand.  

Spirited Away is as already stated a japanese animation and I would say the elements that help anchor the anime to its home ground would have to be the designs of the bath house, the kimono dresses the cleaners deploy and the assortment of clothing and fabric designs. 

Image List

Figure 1. Spirited Away Theatrical Release Poster, accessed at https://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://t1.gstatic.com/images%3Fq%3Dtbn:ANd9GcS6MveoDoJOg9-wMvtHE4ak_-HDZeYS1egb9PwRcf8lhrtcppMc&imgrefurl=http://t1.gstatic.com/images%3Fq%3Dtbn:ANd9GcS6MveoDoJOg9-wMvtHE4ak_-HDZeYS1egb9PwRcf8lhrtcppMc&h=570&w=380&tbnid=dfuH6uYYG6MOqM:&vet=1&tbnh=186&tbnw=124&docid=7miG33z-M1YmHM&itg=1&usg=__PqR3itISOiihWBVzv2P1HoGZb8I=&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj60-TjvOzRAhWLA8AKHRPiAFYQ_B0IhgEwCg&ei=KY-QWLqbF4uHgAaTxIOwBQ on 31.01.17

Figure 2. The Bridge, accessed at https://stillsfrmfilms.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/031.jpg on 31.01.17