I have watched it three times. First as a kid, then in high school and now. Unfortunately it did peak for me with a less developed brain. It is a very good movie, but contrasted with other Ghibli and Miyazaki you long for it to be better.
The world is beautiful, expressed with insane quality of animation and artwork. The music, my god the music. It stayed with me after seeing it the first time and it will stay for the rest of my life. It's rather sad that it can't be complete because of the plot.
At the beginning the
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pig transformation scene happens.
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Chihiro's parents abandon their child as they are overtaken by gluttony. It scared me as a child and still is an emotional, tragic scene. I think it was like that for a lot of viewers, but there's no meaning in it. It just ends up as shock value, that pushes plot forward, on which I'll elaborate near the ending.
As a result the protagonist is thrown into the spirit realm. Where we go along on an adventure of sorts. Being able to learn about the bathhouse, Yubaba, all the different workers and clients and their world with Chihiro, which is engaging and fascinating.
On that journey we'll see quite a
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cruel workplace, where main character is forced into participation by their unfortunate circumstances. This part's fair, relatable, realistic. After that was established Chihiro's goal is to get back
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together with her parents and go back. Everyone would like to get out of that situation. I mean that - EVERYONE. What movie offers is quite an
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egoistic path taken by the protagonist to liberate herself, even as all her acts of sympathy, along the way, would point us to conclude that she wouldn't like to
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leave others to fate that was so unappealing to her. She ends up helping a few people.Spoiler, click to view
Relationship between the baby and Yubaba might have improved by the end of the movie. Haru of course was able to remember his or I suppose as a river it's name. On that point - the fuck? I don't mind a character being a river. I think it's fun and it's one of the only facts I recalled after watching as a less than 10 year old child. There's just no build up to it I feel. Making Haru's plot line resolution fall kinda flat. Only kinda because music and animation let's you push through.
Near end there's the supposedly emotional and tense scene of
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choosing Chihiro's parents from presented group of pigs. I don't understand how could she know. As the audience we aren't given the answer. She just did.
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Going back to the pigs. I was trying to understand some deeper meaning in it, but I just can't. Most basic connection is gluttony's bad.Spoiler, click to view
Pigs eat a lot, so they were changed to pigs. Maybe just pig being a filthy animal for parents that disregard their child? No, not really. The film straightforward explains that it's just because Yubaba is an asshole that deemed them unworthy to eat, what was meant for her clients. She's mean, they angered her, she does a mean thing. You can poke at that reasoning, because one of her main traits is greed. So she values xenophobia for humans more than getting their money, or maybe human money can't be converted to spirit money - idk. This one was a bit too deep, I know. What's given is logical and fair. But the fact remains that they could have been turtles and the same coherence of the movie would be maintained. Oh no - then you couldn't make a scary opening scene and few heartbreaking moments of distressed, lonely child trying to find their parents with unappealing, loud pig squealing to convene the message of Chihiro being in a shitty, stressful situation. Give us a reason Miyazaki. Choosing of my two options in one line of the movie would have been enough.Spoiler, click to view
Film ends with Chihiro, after helping those few people and gaining freedom, leaving the rest - seemingly hundreds of workers at the bathhouse to share the situation she found so bad, and that's it.I did say a lot of bad things, but it's still Miyazaki, still Ghibli. It's a very good movie that would have been worth a watch for music or animation alone.
