Spirited Away - Hayao Miyazaki
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Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi), directed by Hayao Miyazaki in 2001, is not just an animated masterpiece. It’s a rite of passage, a mirror journey, an enchanting coming-of-age tale where the strangeness of the world reveals the truth of childhood. Crowned with an Oscar and adored worldwide, the film resonates deeply because it speaks of something we all experience: growing up without a manual.
It all begins in an ordinary way. Ten-year-old Chihiro sulks in the backseat of a car. She’s moving with her parents, leaving behind her old school and world. A tunnel appears, they step through — unknowingly crossing into the spirit realm. A dreamlike, rule-bound world where gods bathe, names vanish, and parents can turn into pigs.
Alone, Chihiro’s journey becomes a labyrinth. To survive, she must work in a vast bathhouse run by the witch Yubaba. Renamed “Sen”, she’s tiny, clumsy, invisible. But through effort, observation, and encounter, she begins to change. Not into a classic heroine — but into someone capable.
One of the film’s great strengths is its refusal to explain. Every character, every place, every event follows its own logic, never explicitly revealed. A giant baby, a wounded dragon, a stink spirit, a masked ghost… We don’t know what they “mean”, and yet everything is meaningful. Miyazaki trusts our intuition. He breathes mystery.
Chihiro visibly changes — not through magic, but organically, in posture, tone, glance. She learns not to flee, but to act, to feel what’s right. The spirit world doesn’t guide her. It confronts her. And it’s in silence, in gestures, that she transforms.
The character Haku, the boy-dragon, brings in lost memory, forgotten ties, a wordless recognition. Their bond isn’t romantic. It’s spiritual — what we find when we stop seeking.
Joe Hisaishi’s music is crystalline, melancholic, essential. It flows through transformation, hesitation, wonder. Never overbearing — always revealing.
And in the end, Chihiro returns. Through the tunnel. Rejoins her parents. Nothing seems changed. But she has. And so have we.
Spirited Away is a film about growth, about shifting from blur to clarity, about the quiet power of those we underestimate. It’s a tale with no moral, but with one truth: to move forward, you sometimes have to lose your name, cross the unknown, and discover that what once seemed impossible is simply your story.
An inexhaustible film. Like a dream you never forget.