I simply adore the film Spirited Away. It has been one of my favorite movies for years, and for most of that time it served mostly as artistic inspiration. It was the first fantasy I encountered that wasn’t based in some sort of Western-inspired mythology, and it truly opened my eyes to the sort of art and storytelling animation could offer. Along with Hayao Miyazaki’s other works, it has probably been one of the most influential pieces of media on my own writing and art. However, about a year ago, I realized that I had never really analyzed the film as I have others, and had only been watching it for its aesthetic value. So when I had the chance to watch it on the big screen, I also took the opportunity to engage with it critically, and found myself loving the film even more for all of the care it takes with its themes and characters. Here is what this particular piece of animation taught me:
Chihiro’s journey is a coming-of-age story, as so many other fairy tales are. Director Hayao Miyazaki said in an interview that he wanted to create an adventure for the young girls he knew, and felt that many of the sorts of stories that were aimed at them weren’t representative of their personalities and desires. So at the heart of the story we have a young girl who must grow up, and will do so by the end of the film, though of course, in suitable Miyazaki fashion, that will include a formidable witch who rules a bathhouse, a river spirit, three bouncing heads, a boy who can transform into a dragon, and other fantastical sights.
After her parents have been turned into pigs by the aforementioned witch, Yubaba, Chihiro must sign a contract and work in her bathhouse. Stripped of its fairy tale embellishments, the idea of losing parental protection and then entering the workforce becomes a very relatable obstacle to turning into an adult. And to a young person struggling to find work in the vast, intimidating workforce, a bathhouse full of odd, sometimes menacing, spirits can be an apt, if fanciful comparison. The bathhouse, itself a place of danger and excitement, contains another sort of vice: greed. Nearly everyone who comes in contact with, or lives within its walls, is demonstrably greedy in some way. Yubaba is shown to be obsessed with wealth, from the decadence of her furnishings to the way she considers everything and everything around her in terms of financial loss and gain. Haku, the dragon-boy, is described as a, “greedy, little thief,” and gets into trouble for stealing items of considerable value for Yubaba. The No Face spirit, upon entering the bathhouse, tries to win the affection and respect of those around him by making gold, but only succeeds in being turned into a monster by the relentless greed of its inhabitants. Lin and the other employees who work there, are infatuated with the gold, and feed No Face’s worst impulses for their own gain. The only character who remains untouched by greed is Chihiro. For though she has entered the workforce, she does not fall prey to its obsession with money and material wealth. From this we can posit that, although these are necessary steps towards adulthood, there are pitfalls that must be avoided as well.
Although the theme of greed runs throughout the film as a negative, it is memory that saves the day. This puzzled me for a while, because the movie seems to always be progressing further into maturity and makes multiple allusions to the inevitability and irreversibility of time (one of which being the train that only rides in one direction). But it is memory that finally allows Chihiro to give Haku back his name, thus freeing him, and saves her parents from being turned into bacon. That the heroine perseveres and succeeds due to her remembrance of the past, though seeming arbitrary at first, is in fact ingrained into the coming-of-age narrative, or at least Miyazaki’s version of it. Instead of the more straightforward idea that childish things must be put away in order for one to be an adult (a la Peter Pan), this film engages in the more complicated notion that to forget who you were is just as bad as to never grow up at all. Indeed, to forget completely will entrap you just as surely, like Haku, who is powerless to control his fate without the knowledge of who he was.
And so it is that when Chihiro and Haku return to the bathhouse at the end of the film, it seems smaller, diminished, no longer as threatening as it once did, like a place that appeared bigger as a child.
