Film review on Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke

To be honest, it was my first time encountering a Miyazaki film when we watched Princess Mononoke in class. I instantly fell in love with the film, and I could not wait until I did a review on another film of his- which is why I chose to do a film analysis on Spirited Away. Miyazaki’s preference and style incorporated in Princess Mononoke was also reflected in Spirited Away. The portrayal of dominant role of female bosses, young female protagonists, and his personal take on environment was very similar between the two films, reflecting Miyazaki’s unique and personal style.

Brief Synopsis of Spirited Away:

While Chihiro and her parents are on their way to their new home, they get lost and stop in front of a mysterious tunnel, which led to an abandon theme park.

 

Chihiro and her mother going through the tunnel to find an abandoned theme park  on the other side

They discover piles of food inside the park, and Chihiro’s parents start to eat while Chihiro refuses. While her parents are eating, Chihiro decide to explore some more. While exploring, a boy named Haku appears and tells her to escape the theme park with her parents because it’s dangerous. Chihiro runs back to her parents to discover that they have turned into pigs. Frightened Chihiro meets Haku again, and he leads her to the bathhouse and insists that she needs to get a job to stay here to turn her parents back to humans.  Following the instructions of Haku, Chihiro finds her way to the boiler man, Kamaji, to beg for a job. Kamaji convinces a girl named Lin to take her to Yubaba (witch who runs the bathhouse) for a job.  Lin safely takes Chihiro to Yubaba, however, Yubaba sternly refuses. However, she gives in when Chihiro persists and makes her baby cry.  After Chihiro signs a contract for the job, Yubaba steals several of the characters of Chihiro’s name, renaming her Sen (Yubaba steals people’s identities to take control of them). Haku tells Chihiro that he is no longer able to remember his own name, and he is unable to find his home. He also tells Chihiro to never forget her real name if she wants to go back home. Chihiro also learns that Haku is a white dragon. While Chihiro, now refered to as Sen is working at the bathhouse, she encounters a silent, white faced spirited named No-Face. Mistaking him for a customer, she kindly leaves the door open for him to enter. No-Face becomes obsessed with getting Sen’s attention, and devours a frog worker to gain a voice, and creates a scene by offering gold for food. 

No-Name eats the frog to gain a voice and becomes greedy by demanding food  for  gold

After, Yubaba assigns Sen to clean a stink spirit, which later turns out to be a polluted river spirit. The river spirit rewards Sen with a magical cake for cleaning him well. 

The workers of the bathhouse help Chihiro pull out all the junk out of the river spirit

 While this is all happening, Sen sees the white dragon, Haku, getting attacked by birds. Haku flies to Yubaba’s room, and Sen runs upstairs to help, and one of the paper bird climbs onto Sen’s back. Sen finds Haku unconscious in Yubaba’s room, and the paper bird turns into Yubaba, but actually it’s her twin sister, Zeniba.  Zeniba followed Haku because he stole her gold seal. Disgusted by Yubaba’s giant baby, Zeniba turns him into a small mouse and turns Yubaba’s pet bird into a fly. Haku splices Zeniba into half, and she disappears. Haku and Sen fall into to the boiler room where Kamaji tells Sen that Haku is bleeding from the inside, so Sen gives Haku part of the herbal cake the river spirit gave her. Haku vomits up the gold seal and a slug, which Sen squashes. Sen decides to go to Zeniba to cure Haku. On her way to the train, Sen confronts No-Face, who is still terrorizing the bathhouse. He begins to vomit up all the people and things he’s eaten from eating the herbal cake, and turns back to normal. Sen, No-face, the mouse (Yubaba’s baby) and the fly (Yubaba’s pet bird) takes the train to Zeniba’s house. Haku recovers and goes to Yubaba to make her promise him that she will send Sen and her parents back to their world if he returns her baby back to her. When Sen arrives at Zeniba’s, she asks Zeniba to forgive Haku for stealing the seal and apologizes for killing the slug. Zeniba explains that Yubaba put the slug in Haku to control him, and that Haku is already healed from Zen’s love (AW!).  Haku comes to take Sen, mouse and the fly back to the bathhouse, and while on their way, Sen remembers that when she was very young she fell in a river, and the river carried her to safety.

Haku comes to take Chihiro back to her parents at the bathhouse from Zeniba's house 

 She suddenly remembers that the river’s name was Kohaku River, which is Haku’s real name. Haku turns back into a boy again, and Sen’s contract dissolves and she becomes Chihiro again. Free at last, Chihiro finds her parents and they walk back to the other side of the tunnel.

Dominating (good or evil?) female bosses/young female protagonists:

In both of the films, a strong role of a dominating female boss could be found. Females were the ones who took control, and possessed the power, and had people working under them. However, Miyazaki portrayed these bosses in a way that made it difficult to label them as good or evil.

Lady Eboshi with the women of iron town. They dominate the town and carry on the responsibility of men. 

In Princess Mononoke, Lady Eboshi was the ruler of the iron town. She had both men and women working under her, and they lived to obey her rules and demands.  She built the town by clear-cutting forests to produce iron, which led to conflicts with the forest gods. At first, Lady Eboshi seemed greedy and selfish. She was destroying nature to get what she wanted. However, throughout the film, it is revealed that Lady Eboshi took social outcasts under her wing and provided them with places to live, and offered them jobs to manufacture fire arms to defend against the forest gods. Does the fact that Lady Eboshi provides care for the social outcasts cover up the fact that she is destroying nature to satisfy her greedy nature?

A very similar female boss character appeared in Spirited Away named Yubaba. She is the witch the runs the bathhouse for the spirits. She has many workers under her, everything has to be approved by her, and her words are the law in the bathhouse. She is blinded by her greed, even leading to her putting Sen's life in danger to get the gold from No-Face. Her greed also blinds her from noticing that her baby had been turned into a mouse by her sister. Her greed and love for material makes her seem heartless and shallow, however, her love for her baby, Boh, made me think otherwise throughout the film. Throughout the film, all Yubaba wants to do is satisfy her baby. She even promises Chihiro a job if she quiets down so she doesn't wake her baby up. She also freaks out when she finally notices her baby missing, and agrees to free Chihiro and her parents if she gets her baby back. Her love for her baby is unquestionable.  Does Yubaba's endearing love for her baby give her the benefit of the doubt that she is a nice person regardless of the way she treats her workers to get what she wants?

Yubaba hugging her giant baby, Boh

 I thought Miyazaki wanted to portray these female boss characters in such an ambiguous way to accurately reflect the characteristics of the people in the real world. I believe that people aren't born "evil" or "good". I believe that people are ultimately influenced and shaped by their surroundings, which influences their actions. Yubaba and Lady Eboshi's greed for money blinded them to perform some cruel actions. However, Lady Eboshi's heart for the social outcasts, and Yubaba's love for her baby brings out the good in them.

Similar to the female bosses, Miyazaki also included young female protagonists in both of the films. Chihiro in Spirited Away started off as a spoiled girl. It was evident that she has never worked a day in her life. But, throughout the movie, she goes through personal growth through her independence from her parents. She is hard-working, compassionate, fearless, and wise.  Through her bravery and compassion, she is able to help Haku get his real identity back, and saves her parents from Yubaba’s spell. In Princess Mononoke, San expresses her bravery and fearlessness by fighting against Lady Eboshi to protect the environment and nature. She isn’t afraid to enter Lady Eboshi’s territory and fight against her.  Her kindness is reflected when she saves Ashitaka when he is stabbed by the men of Lady Miyazaki's usuage of young female protagonists with admirable characteristics allows the audience, especially young girls, to have someone to look up to, and admire them for their characteristics.

Chihiro

San

Humans vs. Environment:

Miyazaki included many of the similar themes in both of the films, however, I thought Miyazaki strongly portrayed his opinion on environment through both of the films. In Princess Mononoke, the main theme that revolved around the movie was human vs. nature. Lady Eboshi was cutting down trees and destroying nature to produce iron to satisfy wants of humans. Humans were portrayed as being ignorant of the nature they are destroying. The film portrayed constant struggle and battle between humans and nature. Humans were trying to destroy nature to get what they needed, and nature was trying to restore and keep what is theirs. Similarly, in Spirited Away, the problem of human destroying nature is brought up. In the film, a stink spirit enters the bathhouse. Everyone runs away from the spirit because of the smell. However, it is revealed that the stink spirit is actually the river spirit ut turned into a stink spirit because the river spirit was consuming all the pollution done to the river by the humans. Also, it is revealed that the reason Haku could not find his way back home was because his river had been paved over to build various apartment complexes. Through his films, Miyazaki reveals his thoughts and opinions about environment. I thought it was really interesting that in both of the movies, the characters complain about the "smell" of humans. In Princess Mononoke, while San is trying to save Ashitaka, she comments and complains about the smell of humans. In Spirited Away, all the workers at the bathhouse refuses to take Chihiro under them because how "stinky" she is, and complained that they couldn't take the smell of humans. I think that Miyazaki is trying to portray the hatred toward humans, and the consequence of what they have done. I thought it was also interesting how the love story between the two characters in both of the movies ends with them separating to their own worlds. In Princess Mononoke, San and Ashitaka's love story ends with San returning to the forest with her wolves and Ashitaka living in iron town. In Spirited Away, Chihiro also returns to her life with her parents and Haku stays behind with Yubaba and the other spirits. I thought this was Mayazaki's way of expressing his opinion that nature and humans would never compromise, and be able to "stay" together. 

Ashitaka and San parting their separate ways

Both Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away contained so many similarities that portrayed Miyazaki's ideas and personal beliefs. It was really interesting to discover the similarities between the two films, and how Miyazaki's style is portrayed through these similarities.