Friday, November 15, 2002
This Asian version of 'Alice in Wonderland' goes 'oink' in the night.
By MILAN PAURICH
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
Winner of the Golden Bear at last February's Berlin Film Festival, "Spirited Away" is also the most successful movie released in its native Japan where it grossed a mind-boggling $230 million.
The English-dubbed version released stateside by Disney this fall has received almost unanimous praise from U.S. critics and is rapidly becoming both an art house and multiplex phenomenon.
I wanted very much to love "Spirited Away," and have admired several of director Hayao Miyazaki's previous anime dazzlers (e.g., "Kiki's Delivery Service" and "My Neighbor Totoro").
But "Away" lost me very early into its snail-paced 125-minute running time. As with Miyazaki's previous epic-scaled cult 'toon "Princess Mononoke," I was more dazed and confused than enchanted.
Here's the story
Sort of an Asian riff on Lewis Carroll's kid-lighted classic "Alice in Wonderland," "Spirited Away" tells the adventures of an obnoxious 10-year-old girl named Chihiro (voice supplied by Daveigh Chase, Lilo from last summer's "Lilo and Stitch"), who finds herself trapped in a grotesque alternate universe comprised mostly of ghosts, gods and other well-nigh uncategorizable creatures that go bump in the night.
After her parents are transformed into pigs for eating food that was reserved for some spectral beings, Chihiro stumbles across a looming palace, which functions as a spirit world hotel. The cronelike sorceresss Yubaba (amusingly voiced by Suzanne Pleshette) quickly makes the lost lass an indentured servant and renames her "Sen."
Chihiro's only friend and helpmate is a mysterious teenage boy named Haku who volunteers useful tips on how to save her porcine parents. Adding to Miyzakai's already bewildering storyline is the diabolical plot of Yubaba's even nastier twin sister, Zeniba, to use Chihiro/Sen as a pawn in their rancorous feud.
Besides being a half-hour too long, the most disappointing thing about "Spirited Away" is how visually unappealing it is. Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli team hand-paint characters, sets and backdrops before digitizing them, so I was expecting something more than dank, drab interiors and undifferentiated exteriors that bleed together.
Tiresome pest
And the labored, heavy-handed philosophizing (Eastern vs. Western religions; ecological propaganda; juvenile identity crises) is no more coherent or palatable than it was in "Mononoke."
Miyazaki's Lewis Carroll-style quirkiness is best represented by "Mad Hatter" clone Yubaba and hideous spirits like "Extra-Large Stink God," but Carroll's heart is conspicuously absent. Chihiro is such a tiresome pest that we never care whether she reunites with her parents or not.
Miyazaki devotees will no doubt love this film. But don't look for "Spirited Away" to win him any new admirers. Kids who might find some of the gross-out effects amusing are likely to be bored thanks to its excessive length and frustratingly fuzzy story line.
XWrite Milan Paurich at milanpaurich@aol.com.