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May 2003
Spirited Away
Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Starring the voices of Daveigh Chase,
Susan Egan, Jason Marsden, Suzanne Pleshette
Classification: PG
Winner of the Oscar for Best Animated Film, 2003
Not your father's
animated film, Spirited Away details a series of strange and occasionally
unpleasant adventures experienced by ten-year-old Chihiro and her hapless parents.
Thematically, this movie echoes some of the elements found in Miyazaki's earlier
(and lighter) My Neighbor Totoro. Like that film, Spirited Away
begins with a family driving to their new home. Taking a wrong turn, however,
Chihiro and her parents find themselves in what her father declares is an derelict
theme park. Following some delicious odors, her parents are unable to resist
the treats set out in an abandoned restaurant.
It turns out
that this is spirit food, however, and by eating it Chihiro's parents are transformed
into pigs. Chihiro herself, although not having partaken of any of the edibles,
nevertheless begins to vanish.
She is rescued
in a manner of speaking by a boy named Haku, who tells her that the buildings
are actually the environs of a colossal bathhouse frequented by spirits. They
come to the bathhouse to relax before returning to whatever it is that spirits
do during the day. The concept of a bathhouse is foreign to most Americans and
adds nicely to the dreamlike quality of the movie.
The bathhouse
is presided over by a bizarre-looking witch named Yubaba, who has an immense
wart between her eyes and a head as big as her body. Chihiro learns from Haku
that the only way she can rescue her parents is to beg Yubaba for a job in the
bathhouse. And for this, she must give up her name.
The story veers
back and forth in a way that viewers familiar with Disney product will find
strange, to say the least. It is, as well, utterly free of the sort of smirking
elbow-in-the-ribs humor that defines so many American animated films, and this
lends the movie a more serious air. By now everyone knows that Spirited Away
has won the Oscar for best animated film, having been up against some pretty
serious Hollywood efforts like Ice Age, Stuart Little 2, Lilo and Stitch,
The Wild Thornberrys Movie and Treasure Planet. I actually was rooting
for Ice Age, but I am not at all displeased that Spirited Away
won, because I admire the work of its creator, Hayao Miyazaki, very much. American
audiences will be most familiar with his earlier animated film, Princess
Mononoke, which received a fair amount of critical attention here a few
years ago. Spirited Away is a better movie, in my opinion. It has a genuine
Alice-In-Wonderland quality to its unpredictable plotline, and the characters
are not all good or bad, but an intriguing mixture.
Hayao Miyazaki
has said that he doesn't always know how his stories will end when he starts,
and Spirited Away does seem to have some strange plot lapses, especially
toward the end. But that shouldn't stop you from seeking out Spirited Away,
preferably on a large screen where you can sit back and be blown away by the
incredible animation.
Also, do see
if you can find My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service,
earlier and somewhat simpler films from this same talented director.
Here's a worthwhile fan site:
http://www.nausicaa.net/wiki/Main_Page.
Also Today: Recent Raves
Mostly Harmless
By Douglas Adams (1952-2001)
Wikipedia Info
The sixth and
final entry in the inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
trilogy, Mostly Harmless is laugh-out-loud funny in places but remains
the darkest entry in the series, with a surprisingly downbeat ending - despite
Ford Perfect's hysterical laughter. There is some evidence that Adams had planned
to do a seventh volume, but his untimely death has robbed us of that pleasure.
Opening with
a relatively long scene on a parallel Earth where Tricia MacMillan has not gone
off with Zaphod Beeblebrox from that party but has instead become a TV reporter,
the book follows her for a time before veering off, Adams-like, to other plotlines.
It turns out that Arthur Dent and Trillian (as opposed to Tricia) have a daughter,
by means of artificial insemination. This child, Random Frequent Flyer Dent,
is, at the time of this book, a teenager, and out to cause a lot of problems
for Arthur. But worse than that - the Vogons have discovered that they need
to destroy all Earths in all parallel universes in order for their interstellar
bypass to function properly. In order to accomplish this they have launched
a scheme so convoluted and fiendish that - well, that only Douglas Adams could
have thought it up.
This final Hitchhiker's
book contains some of Adams's best writing - some of it surprisingly effective.
Arthur's attempts to work out a relationship with his truculent teenage daughter,
for example, may well ring true to parents everywhere.
The only problem
is -- it isn't funny! It's as if Adams had grown so weary of being comical and
ironic that he actually had to try to make his characters more real just for
the sake of setting himself more of a challenge. He almost manages to do this
(almost - it wouldn't have been easy to pull it off in Ford Prefect's case,
but Arthur was always more interesting than Ford anyway), although at the expense
of some of the lunatic quality that marks his funniest work.
So is this worth
reading? Sure, but be forewarned -- it may give you a twinge of nostalgia for
Marvin, Slartibartfast, and may even Zaphod himself.
Charisma
A novel by Steven Barnes
Release date June 2002
$24.95 hardcover
Tor Books 384 pages
Suppose you had
an idea for improving a group of high-risk children (the poor and minorities)
by imprinting a group of them with personality aspects of one of the most famous
and accomplished men in the world, a man who has distinguished himself in several
fields, a man admired by all, who has risen from poverty by his own efforts
and has been responsible for great social good.
Sounds like a
good idea, doesn't it? Even though there are many who would blanch at the project's
taint of eugenics.
So you have to
keep the project a secret until it proves itself.
Then, before
it does, suppose something goes wrong and the children begin acting in a far
darker manner than anyone would have suspected. So dark, in fact, that you begin
to fear that your model, the famous and well-respected man whose personality
has been imprinted on the children, may harbor a terrible secret that he has
been at great pains to hide from everyone around him.
Almost everyone,
that is. Because even monsters can have a friend or two…
In brief, this
is the idea driving Charisma, the story of a group of young friends who
are more than just special. Barnes takes us into the lives of these super-children,
who really want nothing more than love and a chance to prove themselves. Not
even they are aware of their darker nature until events conspire to bring this
nature to the fore. And once that happens, no one, not even their parents, can
be safe.
I don't want
to say too much about the story because I found it so elegantly written and
compelling. There's a lot of violence and death in this book, but it's so well
done that it never feels gratuitous. Essentially it's the story of how courage
and love can conquer our baser instincts. In that sense the book represents
a sort of liberal fairy tale, what with the bad guys getting theirs and love
conquering almost all; it would probably have most conservative readers shaking
their heads. But this is fiction, not reality, so we can set aside our doubts
and fears and let Barnes, whose co-authors on other books have included Larry
Niven and Jerry Pournelle, spin this entertaining tale. I hope he does other
books about these superkids, because I really liked them.
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