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AgentLexi2132's Rating |
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Zeniba: Now, try to remember as much as you can about your old life.
Chihiro: For some reason, I can remember Haku... from a long time ago... but I thought I never met him before!
Zeniba: Oh, that's a wonderful place to start! Once you meet someone, you never really forget them.
In the middle of her family's move to the suburbs, a sullen 10-year-old girl Chihiro/ Sen wanders into a world ruled by gods, witches, and monsters; where humans are changed into animals; and a bathhouse for these creatures.
Hayao Miyazaki's animated masterpiece is obviously a very foreign film--and not simply because it comes from another country i.e: Japan, there's an imagination at work that's so organic and remote that it seems to spring from an individual's subconscious and as such feels as if it has no immediate relation to a single culture. But it connects universally, speaking as it does in a language that suggests anything is possible and children( and imaginative adults) of all cultures will respond to it instinctively.
The soundtrack also is very effective in setting the mood in key areas.
Wondered if the film is trying to explain death in a simplistic yet secret way to children. No Face would be a likely candidate for that assumption.
Chihiro lets him in and does not fear him like the adults because she doesn't understand what he is. Interestingly, No Face travels on the ghost train and is, consequently, the only companion invited to stay with 'Granny' when the friends decide to make their return journey.
My personal favorite parts are the battle against No Face as Chihiro fights off by simply using a medicine/cure she was given and teaching him the importance of friendship. Also, revealing who Haku really is and showing such loyalty to the one you love.
The moral of this epic story is that sometimes perhaps, you need to mature and learn that you can't rely on someone else to save you.
You must also value your friends and keep loyal to the end.
Nonetheless, it's a fantastic animation with beautiful music, charming characters, a storyline that sucks you in art beyond possibility and comparison.
Renews my hope with it's Oscar win, recognition of imagination at last.
A must see for any anime fan, or fan of Ghibli studios, and a film able to be enjoyed by children and adults alike, Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi, or Spirited Away will leave you breathless and satisfied. Perfection.
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''Why must fireflies die so young?''
A tragic film covering a young boy and his little sister's struggle to survive in Japan during World War II.
Tsutomu Tatsumi: Seita
Ayano Shiraishi: Setsuko
Having finally watched Grave of the Fireflies, it's obvious this is one of the most adult analyzed and true to life Historical human pieces in existence disguised as an anime.
The story tells of two children who lost their parents during World War II. Seita and his younger sister survive on very little. Fireflies shows the toll that war brings on the innocent public, the death, destruction and loss are shown in a way that plays on your emotions. The film is sometimes likened to Schindler's List, for its direct, blunt and relentless truth and it is in this regard is worthy of the comparison.
Fireflies made my throat taunt, my heart heavy and water swell in the recesses of my eyes.
During the course of the film, the two siblings grow faint and weak from starvation, and they simply are not able to obtain enough food to keep alive. The saddest moments seen was during the end of the movie, when Seita cremates his 5 year old sister, who ''never woke up again''.
It's hard to watch Fireflies and feel positive at all, the death and loss is too much for a number of people to fathom. However upon reflection, the movie is one of the greatest studies into loss, love and tragedy ever, which will stay with you and compel you to take a second look at anime. For anime is not simply just kiddie cartoons, it is merely another form of presenting a film in a different format/media.
This isn't a fantasy piece like Spirited Away but one of reality which ends up being just as genius and compelling. Isao Takahata has crafted a tale that also has historical accuracy in the sense it displays the sense of hopelessness and desperation in Japan at the time and especially near the end of WW2. A nation that could not support itself where the rich as always stayed rich and the poor got poorer, ending with a divide that bears similarities to the film Empire of the Sun. The reality of Fireflies cannot be stressed enough, the struggle mesmerizing.
Puts a new spin on Anime and lifts it to new dizzying heights.
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(At the bus stop; a bus is coming)
Satsuki: Oh, boy, we made it.
Bus Conductor: (to passengers) Thank you. Thank you. (To Satsuki & Mei) getting on board or not?
Mei & Satsuki: (shake heads)
Bus Conductor: All right, let's go. (Bus departs.)
Mei: Daddy wasn't on that one, right?
Satsuki: I'm sure he'll be on the next one. Do you want to go back to Nanny's house and wait?
Satsuki: What's the matter?
Satsuki: Mei, you're sleepy.
Mei: Uh-uh.
Satsuki: Aw, come on now. I told you it might be a while. You don't want to go to Nanny's and wait? It won't be long. I'm sure the bus will come soon. Just hang in there. Well, I guess they were delayed, but I hope not. (picks up Mei) Come on.
(Totoro arrives)
Satsuki: I bet you're Totoro.
Totoro: (growls)
Satsuki: Oh we have another umbrella, if you want . (holds it out to him) Go ahead, take it. Come on, I'm going to drop Mei. (he takes it) You put it over your head, like that.
(Headlights approach)
Satsuki: The bus is here.
(Cat Bus arrives, and Totoro leaves)
Satsuki: Mei, wa- wasn't that umbrella he took with him Daddy's?
(Bus arrives)
Bus Conductor: Thank you.
Father: How nice of you to meet me.
Mei: Daddy!
Father: I'm sorry, but the train was late. That's why I missed the first bus. You weren't worried about me, were you?
Satsuki: I saw him, I saw him! He was right beside me at the bus stop!
Mei: Me, too! We saw Cat Bus, too!
Father: Uh, uh
Satsuki: Oh, gigantic arms!
Mei: Great big eyeballs!
Satsuki: It was scary!
Mei: And I was scared!
Satsuki: We saw Totoro!
Mei: We saw Totoro!
Satsuki: We saw Totoro!
Mei: We saw Totoro!
Satsuki: We saw him!
Deep in the countryside in the 1950s, a Tokyo university professor (Shigesato Itoi, Tim Daly) moves into a deserted old house with his two daughters, Satsuki (Noriko Hidaka, Dakota Fanning) and Mei (Chika Sakamoto, Elle Fanning). Though far from Tokyo, they're now closer to the Shichikokuyama Hospital, where Satsuki and Mei's mother is resident in as she recovers from an illness, likely to be tuberculosis. The old house and the surrounding farmland is quiet and almost deserted and as the girls explore their new home, they chase the soot spirits that were left in it up into the rafters but are themselves spooked by the acorns that fall down the attic steps towards them. That night, as Mei, Satsuki and their father bathe together in their new home, they laugh as loud as they can and the soot spirits scarper out through the roof, floating through the sky and past a great Camphor tree that grows outside. But something is sitting high in the branches of that tree and hooting into the night.
The next day, Satsuki goes to school and Mei is playing out in the yard when the spots a trail of acorns disappearing into the trees nearby. As she follows them into the trees, she sees a little white creature sprint across the garden before disappearing. As Mei looks around, it reappears and runs underneath the house and she follows it, not noticing that it sneaks out behind her along with a larger blue creature. Too late she sees them and runs after them, following them into the middle of a Camphor Laurel tree where she sees the biggest creature of all, who calls itself Totoro. When Satsuki arrives home and Mei is still missing, she and her father go in search of her little sister, finding her curled up in the forest and mumbling about Totoro, who, Mei thinks, will be there to take her and her sister on a magical journey if only she could find him again...
There are long, drawn-out scenes in the kitchen and in the family bath that you'd never catch in a Disney film.
The most beautiful scene of all is that of the two girls waiting at the bus stop for their father to come home from work. They must wait on screen for at least a few minutes or so.
It's astonishingly shocking and effective in its lack of activity. American filmmakers, who are always claiming that their animation is not just meant for children, still feel the need to pack every second of their movies with nonstop noise and action. Totorro, on the other hand, has the pacing you'd hope for if you moved out to the country. It's a simple, melancholy little film that just strikes me as so damn true to life itself.
I love the ''Those are Totorro Clouds." This is of course another example of the amazing drawing and animation in this movie. Beautiful interior shots with amazing detail. Great drawings of people, although I'll never understand why anime always includes the huge round eyes and the cavernous mouths. There's the one scene where the tree grows all the way up to the sky.
Only qualms would be the ending but only because i wanted more plus the interest was sometimes diluted by uninteresting scenes but these were few, another masterpiece from Hayao Miyazaki.
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Want to see at some point in the future...
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Will have to watch this one. Not necassarily good or bad. Will see. Want to watch! wow like a follow up im assuming????
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Like to see this, from the books....mystical!
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Worth finding and watching!
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