Spirited Away

Spirited Away is a digitally hand drawn Japanese animation created by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli that tells the tale of a 10 year old's struggles of growing up.

Still from Spirited Away.

Similarly to The Nightmare Before Christmas, I feel that this film was directed at a family audience. This is because it has many issues that the main character has to deal with such as; dislocation, fear of losing one's parents, the essential anxieties of growing up, which parents can relate to. It also encourages children to except the weird and wonderful and takes them into a fantasy world in which imagination seems to live and breathe.

I feel that the film is trying to communicate the struggles of growing up as a child and it has parallels to Japan's busted economic bubble and polluted streams at the time. And I feel that it communicates this in an extraordinary manner. Whilst presenting it's ideas, Spirited Away also reminds you of the power of imagination and the pure beauty of animation and the things it is capable of. 

Overall, I feel that Spirited Away is a very cleverly, beautifully crafted animation that succeeds on more than one level of portraying its messages to a range of audiences.