12 Movies Challenge: Spirited Away

by Julian Spivey

In December I saw something called the “12 Movies Challenge” on Facebook. The premise was that you would have 12 months to watch 12 movies recommended by 12 friends. I don’t often participate in such social media challenges but being a movie buff I felt this might be an interesting way to get out of my comfort zone a bit when it comes to watching movies.

My Facebook buds gave me some films that I’ve been meaning to watch and I pretty much front-loaded those on the list – though not explicitly stated in the challenge rules I am opting to watch one film a month.

A Best Picture winner like “Out of Africa” is an obvious choice for me to get to at some point – that point is now going to be March of this year. But there are certain movies I’m not really looking forward to all that much – I’m looking at you “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken,” my August selection. Then there’s the acclaimed stuff that isn’t really up my alley like the anime feature “Spirited Away,” which I’ve scheduled for November. That will truly be me getting out of my comfort zone.
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Here are the 12 movies recommended to me and the months I’ve assigned myself to watch them:
 
January: “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” (1983)
February: “Till” (2022)
March: “Out of Africa” (1985)
April: “Legally Blonde” (2001)
May: “The Devil Wears Prada” (2006)
June: “The Birdcage” (1996)
July: “Morning Glory” (2010)
August: “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken” (1966)
September: “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006)
October: “Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1975)
November: “Spirited Away” (2001)
December: “The Last Laugh” (1924) 

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Photo: Studio Ghibli

​There are times when watching art where you can admit something is fine cuisine but your palate just isn’t used to it and might never develop a taste for it.

That’s kind of how I feel about Hayao Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away” (2001), which was my November recommendation from my friend Ben Keller as part of my year-long 12 Movies Challenge. I asked Ben before viewing the film if I should watch it with the English dubbing or in Japanese with English subtitles and he recommended the dubbing. I hope this isn’t considered some sort of movie sin.

Now this might be a bit too on the nose because “Spirited Away” is a Japanese film but it just so happens that I’m not much for sushi. I much rather stick to the hamburgers and steaks that I’m used to.
However, I can’t find any faults in “Spirited Away,” and if everyone from the Academy Awards to IMDb users and Roger Ebert to most of my friends who’ve seen it consider it to be an all-time great film I certainly won’t attempt to deny it.

“Spirited Away” is the story of Chihiro, a 10-year-old girl, who while moving to a new city with her parents stumbles across a mystical world within a former theme park that includes a bathhouse for spirits. This bathhouse is run by a witch named Yubaba (dubbed in English by Suzanne Pleshette) who turns gluttonous humans, like Chihiro’s parents, into pigs. Yubaba doesn’t want humans in this world but has made some sort of pact that if they ask for a job within the bathhouse she can’t deny them, but she can steal their name and thus Chihiro becomes Sen within this world, but if she forgets her real name she will be stuck in this world forever.

A lot is going on within this movie, some of which I understand and some I don’t and would probably have to be far more knowledgeable in Japanese folklore to ever truly understand – this was ultimately a film made for children, so I figure Japanese kids are far more advanced than American ones if they're getting some of this stuff.

I’ve never been a huge fan of animation of any kind – movies, television, etc. – and have never entered the world of anime. So, “Spirited Away” is a first for me. And, while I’m not an expert on anything related to anime or animation in general I can say that the hand-drawn images for this film by Miyazaki are beautiful and amazing. This isn’t a way we’re accustomed to viewing animation today and it honestly wasn’t in 2001 either when the film was released, as it was mostly computerized by then. It’s amazing to see this art form in action. “Spirited Away” is the only hand-drawn animation to ever win the Oscar for Best Animated Film, though that category was ridiculously only instituted by the Academy in 2001 after most animation was done via computer technology.

Next month we close out the 12 Movies Challenge of 2023 with the oldest film on the list - director F.W. Murnau's 1924 silent film "The Last Laugh."