For many years, Spirited Away has been the first anime in Japan.
The box office myth of 30.8 billion yen was not broken until last year by Devil's Blade: Infinite Train.
Although the box office ranks second, in terms of word of mouth, "Spirited Away" is still the No. 1 in the history of Japanese films.
Spirited Away has won four awards at the Academy Award for Best Animation, the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, and the Annie Award.
The Annie Award is one of the highest awards in the animated film industry.
In front of Spirited Away, "Devil's Blade Infinity Train", which does not have too many trophies, is like a new upstart whose paint has not dried.
Domestic audiences also like "Spirited Away", Douban gave a high score of 9.4, better than 99% animation, 99% fantasy films.
With a wide audience and strong reputation, this is the king of Japan's first animation.
Oshii Mori, the director of Ghost in the Shell, watched Spirited Away and was quite critical.
He didn't understand that this animation was obviously full of slots, why could it make a lot of money?
Groove one, the story line is not clear.
Chihiro and her parents arrive at a deserted amusement park, where they become vicious pigs because of their gluttony. Oshii believes that Chihiro's parents turned into pigs just to make Chihiro lonely and alone, in preparation for her to break into the hidden area and do hard work.
"Miyako's first consideration is how to let Chihiro, who came from the city, do heavy physical labor, awaken through labor, and become a self-reliant child." If you want to do this, let your parents become pigs, there is no need to desperately investigate. The task of parents is basically completed at the beginning, which is called 'convenience first'."
This kind of convenience supremacy also brings trouble to Chihiro's parents, and we can't understand that middle-aged people who have experienced urban life, in a deserted amusement park, see a variety of food, and even have no vigilance at all, and eat food when they see it.
Is this kind of plot a narrative laziness?
In addition, in the second half of Chihiro's entry into the Hidden Zone, her main mission has changed from turning her parents back into a human to saving the White Dragon and the Faceless Man. This also means that the film has changed from a family line to a love line, and the focus of the story has shifted.
Slot two, Chihiro's change is too abrupt.
Chihiro's family leaves Tokyo and moves to the countryside, and Chihiro's mood is sad at this time.
This sadness is Chihiro's emotional reaction to the move, proving that she cannot accept the move.
We can't feel Chihiro's super adaptability to different environments from this.
In the yuya, Chihiro can quickly adapt to the cruel laws of survival and achieve a rebirth. This super adaptability is very different from Chihiro's reactions in the real world.
For this change, Oshii Mori believes that this is Miyazaki's consistent practice.
"Elder Gong didn't like to hesitate, didn't like children who loved to say, 'I hate this kind of work,' so he jumped the whole process." Immediately turn Chihiro into a hard-working, hard-working child who loves to work. ”
It can also be seen from here that we accept Chihiro's performance in the yuya, not the victory of Chihiro's character, but the triumph of Miyazaki's grammar.
Because everyone accepts Miyazaki's preferences, they feel that Chihiro can grow up in an instant.
So the question is, if other directors don't have Miyazaki's golden signboard, they will be madly complained about when they deal with the role in this way, right?
Slot three, white dragon and faceless man, who is the male protagonist?
Oshii believes that Miyazaki did not understand who was the male protagonist of the film.
"Miyazaki never thought it would be a movie about a faceless man... Whoever watches the movie will initially think it's chihiro and Hakuryu. Who expected to see half of it, originally only occasionally, like a monster-like strange uncle faceless man more and more scenes. It's confusing – where is this story going? ”
As early as 2001, "Spirited Away" entered the promotional period, and Toshio Suzuki produced a large number of faceless men's images to promote the film.
Miyazaki, who was not very concerned about publicity, asked him, "Why use faceless men for propaganda?" ”
Toshio Suzuki specifically compared the shots of the white dragon and the faceless man, and found that the lens of the faceless man was higher than that of the white dragon.
He believes that the faceless man is more qualified to be the male protagonist of the film.
In the film, Bai Long was once the thug of Tang Mother-in-law, Bai Long was injured by Qian Mother-in-law, chihiro in order to get Qian's forgiveness, took the tram to the bottom of the swamp to find Qian's mother-in-law.
On the other hand, the faceless man also accompanied Chihiro to find Grandma Qian, and eventually stayed there.
This trip is not so much about saving the white dragon as it is about saving the faceless man.
Because the faceless man can show the meaning of the existence of the money mother-in-law.
I have previously interpreted the image of the faceless man, pointing out that he is a symbol of desire, a painful heart that is confused in the era of consumption.
Mother Tang's soup house is a powerful consumption system that pursues a cruel law of survival, either becoming a laborer (or being eaten) or playing a consumer.
The faceless man is not short of money, and as long as he wants, he can buy all kinds of things he wants at the soup house.
However, the service provided by the soup house also brings endless pain to the faceless man.
He ate all the food in the soup house, even ate the waiter, his body became more and more swollen, and his temperament became more and more tyrannical.
What swelled up was his body, but also the emptiness and pathology that tormented him.
What eliminates the pain of the faceless man is not to spend more money, but to let him live with the money mother-in-law.
There is a clear implication in this: consumer society is painful, and agricultural civilization gives peace.
On the other hand, Qian's search for Grandma Qian, nominally to heal the body of the White Dragon, is essentially to save the soul of the Faceless Man.
The rescue of the latter highlights the difference between Grandma Tang and Grandma Qian, which also proves that the scene of the faceless man is obviously more meaningful than the scene of the white dragon.
I must reiterate that the above is not my family's word.
These grooves about Spirited Away come from Oshii's new book, Don't Want to Say Bad Things! No one dares to comment on the Ghibli merits, and those who are interested can buy it and read it.
Even though Spirited Away is full of slots, the film still has a special hit.
Oshii believes that this is the national nature of Japan, "The Japanese are like this, they don't criticize things that have been great success." The same goes for Akira Kurosawa. ”
In addition to questioning the full grooves of "Spirited Away", Oshii Mori also praised chihiro and the faceless man sitting on the tram, which was the best in his movie career.
"On the railway, which was shallow and shallow, Chihiro and the faceless man got on the train together and staggered forward — the scene of the Mitsuto River was the best scene I've seen in a movie so far."
For domestic audiences, Miyazaki is undoubtedly one of the best directors in Japan.
His works can transcend national boundaries and touch the hearts of domestic audiences, because the nostalgia from the era of agricultural civilization is always revealed in his works.
The faceless man bid farewell to the soup house where money is supreme, lived with his mother-in-law Qian, and lived a pastoral life of doing his own work and abundant food and clothing.
"Feeling pain in the city, returning to the countryside to find yourself" has always been one of Ghibli's favorite themes, represented by Miyazaki.
"Totoro", "Fairy Tale of the Years", "Marnie in Memory" and "Spirited Away" are all the same to the present.
This beautiful imagination of agricultural civilization does not satisfy everyone. For example, Takeshi Kitano, who was born bitterly, complained that Miyazaki was a rich second generation who did not know the suffering of the countryside.