If you ever wonder what a Japanese version of Alice In Wonderland would be like, look no further than Spirited Away. This is not only the second full-length anime feature by director and screenwriter Hayao Miyazaki to debut on American soil – the other being Princess Mononoke. And like the latter, American studio distributors waited for at least a year for Spirited Away to receive exceptionally favorable reviews and more than a few film awards before bringing it to the United States. But it is finally here. And so is this review!

      Like Alice In Wonderland, Spirited Away tells of an adventure of a young girl, named Chihiro, who accidentally stumbles into a spirit world where everyone looks strangely non-human in a Lewis Carroll sort of way. Before she knows it, her parents, whom she is traveling with, are turned into pigs, and she must find a way to get out of the spirit world and rescue her parents from their plight before they become pork roast for the spirits. To do so, she finds work as a servant girl in a Japanese-styled ‘bathhouse for the spirits’ and befriends several spirits: the young human-looking male Haku, and servant girl Lin who takes Chihiro under her wing. Like Alice, the bulk of her adventure is exploring the strange new world she is in, treading on unchartered territories with comical results, and interacting with the odd-looking spirits in the bathhouse.

      The spirit characters, specifically the forms that they take on, form the main plot of the story. Miyazaki, a masterful anime artist especially in mythical-oriented tales, presents the forms that these characters take on: frogs, giant furry creatures, masked creatures with no definite physical forms, female humanoids with large heads, male humanoids with large rodent-like heads, six-armed man, birds with old women’s heads, giant slug-like stink spirit (whose garbage consumption is represented by the dark stinking goo emanating from its body). Watching them unfold onscreen is an adventure in itself. But the adventure does not stop there. Like many fairy tales, the ‘antagonist’ is an ugly-looking witch Yubaba, who happens to have an extremely large head and a very small body. But unlike most fairy tales, her reputation for wickedness is only skin-deep.

      Executive producer John Lasseter deserves some credit for the English dubbing. It is not absolutely flawless, but is certainly more polished and less superficial and stiff than most English-dubbed films. There are many moments where the dubbed voices are emotional and mesh smoothly with the emotions of the characters. But for the most part of the dubbing, the campy tone is still prevalent, and the characters still behave goofy. The translation of the expressions is occasionally lost from Japanese to English. The most obvious example is the voiceover for Lin, provided by Susan Egan. Her delivery is forced, and often does not sound as if her character would speak in that certain way onscreen. But overall, the English-speaking cast performed their voiceovers well: Daveigh Chase as the vulnerable Chihiro, Jason Marsden as the strong confident Haku, Suzanne Pleshette as the bathhouse head of the Yubaba.

      Miyazaki is often referred to as the “Walt Disney of Japan”, a term he hated. Ironically, this film is distributed in the United States by Buena Vista Pictures – an affiliate of Walt Disney Pictures, who is also credited as one of the producers. Though Disney has a hand in the editing, dubbing and dialogue storyboard, the film itself is far from Disney. There is hardly any pop culture references, nor are there any spontaneous song-and-dance, slapstick characters for the sole purpose of slapstick, one villain minimum, or 90-minute time constraint; all of which are peculiar to Disney animated features. While Disney relies heavily on dialogue and comedy to carry a story, which drives the animation, the reverse is true for Japanese anime. The latter treats animation as a serious art form, and uses it to drive the story, which in turn carries the drama and comedy. As such, it does not have to subject the characters to loony antics to make them interesting or likable.

      The main characteristic of Yubaba’s infant son is his gigantic size. Although he does cry like a baby, that is only a part of his character. He has a definite personality, which is shown in a tensed encounter with Chihiro. How different he would have been had Disney or any American animation studio tried animating him. (Think Big Fat Baby from Histeria.) The film’s plot teases a villainous turn for Yubaba that never played out, even though she looks the part. Instead, it resolves her character as a stern yet compassionate employer whose only vice is stealing from her twin sister. Chihiro’s act of good will in returning Yubaba’s stolen item to her twin is an interesting alternative to the villainous turn. Not so much the idea of it, but the animation of it. It is beautifully depicted – the train ride, the leaping lamppost, even including Yubaba’s twin teasing a villainous turn that turns into a happy ending. The flight back to the bathhouse is a reminiscent of Atreyu’s ride on Falkor in The Neverending Story.

      Like Princess Mononoke, PG rating and expectations of a standard Disney fare will likely hurt the box-office performance of Spirited Away. But that does not diminish the beauty of this fairy tale like adventure. Japanese anime has proven to be more than just a barrel of laughs. It is capable of telling a compelling story rich in drama and characterization through vivid animated artwork that defies imagination. Spirited Away is another testament to that fact.

L'Apprenti, 2002