movie review - Spirited Away
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-eight years and a million words
Toronto, 2002.10.07
This is a Japanese animated movie of outstanding art work and brilliantly original storytelling. It's about a girl who gets separated from her parents after they blunder into the spirit world. She is forced to rescue her parents once they fall victim to a spell; a task involving dragons, voracious monsters, evil witches, and gargantuan infants. It's really quite brilliant, and I recommend it for the cinema rather than rental. I love its mad, almost feverish feeling as surreal events play out between and around the heroine.
A favorite. Strongly recommended.
P.S. A personal favorite among the ghosts, monsters, demons, and so on: kaonashi. I'd like to make a Hallowe'en costume of that character some day.