“Spirited Away”
This isn’t my usual fare – I was never much into the Japanese animation scene. I watched Hayao Miyazaki’s “Princess Mononoke” on video after all the buzz it got, and I liked it, although I remember almost nothing about it now.
But John‘s enthusiasm won me over, and it turns out to be a highly entertaining night at the movies. One beautiful fanciful image after another unspools in front of you, and the unfailing good nature of the enterprise carries you past the sometimes stilted dialogue or its rather long 2-hour running time.
Lots of people on IMDB compare it to “Alice in Wonderland,” but I would say it’s more like a Japanese “Wizard of Oz.” There’s even a sort of good witch-bad witch thing going on.
As John mentioned, my favorite part was the somewhat Disneyesque exploits of a bug carrying a mouse (trust me, you just have to see it). “Bug and Mouse” doesn’t have the ring of “Gnat and Rat.” But we can iron those details out later.
Recommended.
I agree. Though I thought the bug was really a tiny bird. I could be wrong. 🙂 I hadn’t thought about the Wizard of Oz thing — you’re right, it’s much more like that than like Alice.
I thought about this movie for days, which is my personal litmus test for a good film.
I thought it was a bird too.
They usually seem to do a better job on subtitles, so the dialogue may improve on the DVD.
Now that you say it, maybe it was a bird. I think I was influenced by John’s “gnat” designation.
It buzzed. Birds don’t buzz. Not even buzzards.
It’s a bug.
____________
I go now.
I would say that there’s a happy medium here (since when did I take on peace-keeping behaviors?): the bird in question started out as the evil witch Yubaba’s ravenesque henchman, but when shrunken down to the size of a gnat by Yubaba’s Glenda-type good sister Zeniba, it’s frenzied wing flapping does sound suspiciously like a mosquito or a gnat, and frankly, “Shrunken Bird and Rat” doesn’t have the same tweener marketing potential of “Gnat and Rat”. And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?
I vote for gnat :). When I saw Spirited Away, I was one of the few people who walked out of the theater a bit disappointed. I absolutely loved Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away just didn’t seem to flow with the same ease and magic. There were definitely flashes of amazing fantasy throughout the movie but somehow it never came together like I wanted it to. On a completely different note, if you want to further broaden your anime horizons, I can recommend Grave of the Fireflies. It’s also not your typical Japanese animation. The story centers around two young children orphaned in WWII. I can’t say enough good things about it. It’s sad, powerful, moving….