When exploring their new neighbourhood, 10-year-old Chihiro and her parents unwittingly stumble into a magical spirit world. With her parents turned into pigs, Chihiro must embark on a perilous, surreal journey to save them, in which she finds work at a bath house, and encounters a dragon and a witch. With a nod to Alice in Wonderland, Spirited Away is Miyazaki’s much-admired Oscar-winning masterpiece.
“Spirited Away sets its intimations of mortality, the decline of a culture and the loss of nature against one of the most sumptuous and dazzling mises en scène ever created in cinema – in the bathhouse of the gods, where the initially timorous young heroine goes to find work in order to rescue her parents who have been cursed by a magic spell. This is an enchanting and exciting coming-of-age story that can be enjoyed by all ages, but the subdued, lambent melancholy of the movie’s final third, with its train ride into the shadows, is a tour de force of what animation can do.“ Susan Napier
“This is not only as good as animation film gets – this is simply cinema at its best.“ Anne Gjelsvik
“Joe Hisaishi’s enchanting score, the watercolour-like tableaux, and Miyazaki’s trademark trust in his audience to grasp the essence of a moment without any dialogue – aesthetic, tonal and emotional perfection.“ Alan Mattli