The Film excerpted from FILM FREAK CENTRAL presents The Films of Hayao Miyazaki by Walter Chaw

An extraordinary film blessed with a wealth of critical possibilities, Spirited Away places high among the most beautiful animated films ever made. It is a culmination of Miyazaki's auteur motifs (displaced children, surrogate parents, magical modes of transportation, the freedom of flight, etc.), which are at ease now with the filmmaker's political inclinations--comfortably buried in the subtext, all. Another marriage of tradition with the modern sensibility, another meditation on the encroaching of civilization on the natural, and on its most basic level, another brilliant fable about dealing with the pitfalls of growing up, though a strong case could be made for Spirited Away as a discussion of the evils of bathhouses and their link to prostitution (young girls at the beck of beasts), the film at its heart is a thing of bracing genius. The narrative involved with a young girl Sen as she's separated from her gluttonous parents (more pigs and their appetites à la Porco Rosso) and forced to work in a bathhouse frequented nightly by Japan's pantheon of house and nature spirits, the latest from Miyazaki is an adventure, a thriller, a comedy, and a romance at once and at once political and personal, but at its heart and most importantly, Spirited Away concerns a little girl learning to honour her friends and her family by valuing herself.

The first platter opens with trailers for Kiki's and Castle while preceding the film proper is an introduction from John Lasseter in which the Pixar guru says it's his favourite of Miyazaki's films. The only other extra on the disc is the Disney-centric "The Art of Spirited Away" (15 mins.), featuring glimpses of the scripting and recording sessions for the Anglo version (if I were co-screenwriter Cindy Hewitt, I would not have made the embarrassing admission that she and others thought the sought-after "seal" in the picture referred to an animal rather than a stamp), Disney executives extolling the virtues of Spirited Away's "good values," and Miyazaki--whose voice is supplanted by an English-speaking soundalike--briefly touching on the inspirations for select characters. Surprisingly, a shot of Miyazaki smoking went uncensored.

Disc 2 kicks off with "Behind the Microphone," a 6-minute puff piece hosted by sitcom vet Jason Marsden (the voice of Haku in the U.S. Spirited Away) that takes a closer and more self-congratulatory look at the ADR work of Marsden, Pleshette, Daveigh Chase (the erstwhile Lilo and The Ring's Samara), Susan Egan, and Disney "good-luck charms" John Ratzenberger and David Ogden Stiers. Next find "Select Storyboard-to-Screen Comparisons," a dual-angle feature wherein you can toggle between key art drawn by and large by Miyazaki himself and the finished animation for eleven minutes worth of scenes.

But the highlight of the platter--indeed, the set--is the anonymously-named "Nippon Television Special", forty-two precious minutes inside cozy Studio Ghibli during crunch time as Miyazaki and his multiplying staff rush to make an unrealistic release date. To a triumphant score and man-on-the-scene narration, Miyazaki (ever lamenting that "Japanese culture is doomed" due to the ignorance of his young charges, who seem to live in a historical vacuum) confers with his protégé Masashi Ando, cooks dinner for his crew, directs Eastern vocal talent (as with the Stateside release, the actors performed to completed footage), eats KFC and smokes like a chimney, and bathes in the beauty of Spirited Away's theme song, Youmi Kimura's "Always with Me." (Kimura's own story of how she became part of the Ghibli family is motivational.) It's also the sole making-of in the entire package to forgo any mention of Disney. A 28-minute (!) block of Japanese trailers and TV spots for Spirited Away (22 in total) rounds out the DVD.-Bill Chambers

© Film Freak Central; filmfreakcentral.net. This review may not be reprinted, in whole or in part, without the express consent of its author.

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DVD VITALS:
Running Time
125 minutes
MPAA
PG
Aspect Ratio(s)
1.82:1 ONLY, 16x9-enhanced
Languages
English DD 5.1,
Japanese DD 5.1,
French Stereo
CC
Yes
Subtitles
English
2 DVD-9s
Region One
Disney

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Published: April 6, 2003