Spirited Away is an animated film directed by Hayao Miyazaki. The main
protagonist is Chihiro, a girl moving town with her family in Japan. On the way
to the new house, her father takes a wrong turn and they enter the spirit
world. Here, her parent’s greed causes them to turn into pigs. They ignore
their duties as a parent. Chihiro is terrified as she always relied on them for
everything. Now she must learn to navigate the world herself.
Bildungsroman is a genre that shows the development of a protagonist from
innocence to maturity. First, they search for answers to questions. Then they
gain maturity from their difficult journey, trials and misfortunes. This affects
their final growth. They go through four stages, the call, the apprenticeship,
maturity, acceptance and remedy.
This screenshot is medium shot the call of the story, Chihiro is going through
an identity crisis we see her facial expression which shows melancholy (feeling
of sadness and depression) as she doesn’t want to move house. As Chihiro
clutches to the flowers close to her heart it shows that Chihiro is longed to go
back home and misses her friends. It makes Chihiro seems vulnerable. Chihiro
body posture seems to be childish where we see her as a shojo girl. The colour
of Chihiro’s clothes is green represents youth and the inexperience to the start
of her journey.
This connects to my own experiences. I was in year 2 when my family moved to
Australia. I didn’t want to move but I had to. I had to leave all my friends
behind and I slowly forgot them. Moving to a new country was the hardest
most challenging thing I’ve done. Learning a new language and adapting to a
new environment all at once was difficult. But eventually, after living in
Australia for a few months, I started to understand English more fluently. I
started to accept my new place in life.
In this scene, Chihiro passes the test of Yubaba. All the workers in the
bathhouse who were belittled when she arrived were cheering for her. She
took the hardest job in the bathhouse, the river spirit and no face, and made
lots of money for them. Her goodness made her lots of friends. This is the kind
of person Miyazaki implores young people to be. The angle of this screenshot
is mid-shot shows that Chihiro as a powerful mature girl. The use of colours red
shows passion and power. We see the happy expressions on Chihiro’s face and
others show that they approve of her and are grateful as she heads back home
and reunites with her parents. You can see that Chihiro is running towards the
audience, across the bridge signifies that she’s coming back home comparing
to the start of Chihiro’s journey where she enters the bathhouse.
This connects to my own experiences of how I felt when I finally got to see
China again after staying in Australia for a year. I finally got to see my relatives,
their heads popping in and out in the crowds to greet me. I felt happy to be
back home. This connects with how Chihiro felt when she reunited with her
parents after the long journey and stay at the bathhouse.
Spirited Away is entertaining, challenging and highlights Miyazaki concerns of
how Japan dealt with the role of a good parent. It also highlighted the culture
of the shojo girl, consumerism, and the disappearance of traditional values
influenced by western culture. At the beginning of the film, she is afraid of new
experiences. During the film, she faces many obstacles and grows as a person.
By the end of the film, she has grown to become more confident and stronger.
Despite this, she maintained her core values by being courageous,
hardworking, polite, and giving people the benefit of the doubt. Most
importantly, she demonstrates love and kindness. This is all that’s needed to
succeed in life.