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Spirited Away
If I had to sum up Spirited Away in a few words it would be absolutely amazing to say the least -- a psychological depth and artistic brilliance that I've never experienced ever before, not even by a Kaufman film! I’m not going to bother summarizing Spirited Away and this randomized entry assumes that you’ve already seen it.GGh?
©緣生術數研究社 -- 術數研究 hL$lR
I gotta confess though, that this is my second viewing of Spirited Away and in my first viewing I wasn’t very impressed (some people still don’t get Citizen Kane) which is a testament to one of the films alluding themes -- that the average human adult looks without seeing, listens without hearing, touches without feeling, eats without tasting, moves without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odour and fragrance, and talks without thinking or rather thinks without thinking…Z.-
©緣生術數研究社 -- 術數研究 Aj @
Anyways this movie is steeped in nostalgia and is unabashedly surreal, this film is just like taking an acid trip without the acid…2*n:Q
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For example after Chihiro boards the train… the train is glimpsed skirting across its watery tracks. This train sequence really does have some delicate, mindful, as real as a dream scenery; a lone tree on a small island at sunset stands out particularly. It leaves a sordid yet melancholic taste in my mouth, with a lingering sense of familiarity... Old buildings and quiet streets of the towns really seem to strike nostalgic memories that have to deal with your own memories of your childhood at the age of 10; which are exacerbated with the fragile fluid and occasionally chilling score.
At the same time the visuals are hauntingly surreal; managing to evoke the dreamy and misty realist-feel of an Edward Hopper piece, with the mysticism of a Salvador Dali painting.(You ever have that dream where you’re half awake, possibly looking out a window, into some illusory scene, over-coloured in the half-tints and caroming around a phantasmagoric nocturnal world? And you cannot wake up from that dream?)
Haven’t we all been uprooted by our parents from the country to the suburbs in a way? (More literally for some of us);%
©緣生術數研究社 -- 術數研究 2`k}vX
Anyways, genius, according to its original meanings are: "to give birth" (related to the word genesis) and "to be zestful or joyous," Essentially, the real meaning of genius is to "give birth to the joy" and every child is born with that capacity. Each child comes into life with wonder, curiosity, awe, spontaneity, vitality, flexibility, and many other characteristics of a joyous being. Young children have vivid imaginations, creative minds, and sensitive personalities.
Unfortunately, there are strong forces working at home, in the schools, and within the broader culture, to stifle and cripple these genius qualities in children. All children under the age of ten are poets and philosophers. But when they notice their elders, they begin to imitate them. In this one action is lost all their brilliance; and for most people, they never get back to what struck every fiber of their minds as children.
The mental functions then become atrophied and degenerated. When we later on attempt to awaken those functions, we are surprised to find them absent. We labour under the false impression that the child is naturally inapt and deficient. To make up for this apparent deficiency we force the child's mind into narrow channels, crippling and deforming it into mean mediocrity.
The child is run into the rigid moulds of home, school, and college with the result of permanent mutilation of originality and genius. The unfortunate thing is the firm belief that the crippled spirit of the child is a congenital mediocrity. Instead of shouldering the fault, we put the burden on Heredity. The spirit of genius in childhood such as playfulness, creativity, wonder and awe are destroyed.^=*
©緣生術數研究社 -- 術數研究 ,z.jJ
“Well what the Hell does this have to do with the kick ass movie Spirited Away?” you ask.-iNe
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Lets look at Chihiro a little more closely. She’s the average 10 year old little child, on the brink of adolescence. She’s teetering precariously on the edge of her childhood, unwittingly about to lose her innocence and what lies beyond is a new world full of empty souls… of “No-Faces”.O"2
©緣生術數研究社 -- 術數研究 /D"ZI
No face is the developed country, capitalist country, bestowing opportunity and riches on its citizens. These gifts are dangerous because they can easily corrupt. On this level, No-Face represents us as a provider.bR9
©緣生術數研究社 -- 術數研究 Tq
But No-Face also can be taken as the individuals stuck in this system. Too weak to resist the temptations, they try to find worth and pleasure in something that ultimately won't be fulfilling. They gradually lose their identity and become just another consumer. Loneliness, it seems to me, is connected to this.I\Jxwd
©緣生術數研究社 -- 術數研究 ]eW
Lets look back at the train sequence once more (I guess I have a train fetish).The people on the train and at the station are the spirits of the people who wandered through the tunnel but never ate anything and thus disappeared. They go about their daily routine in the other world not knowing any better. I think that's why the girl at the station is so intent because she is remembering what its like to be human since she sees Chihiro. This can be further summed up in the following quote:e_R),H
©緣生術數研究社 -- 術數研究 L3(q
"When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them, they show us the state of our decay."3E3B
©緣生術數研究社 -- 術數研究 r=L\
Now a peak at the colourful characters and spirits that are peppered throughout the film and what they may symbolize. In the “human” world, these spirits and Gods are manifested as various trees, animals, rivers, rocks and all sorts… It is lore yes, but a deeper search reveals that these spirits are a reflection of nature itself… which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind; of the child’s mind. (It isn’t so ironic now that the characters were inspired by real people and that the vivid and colourful sceneries drawn over true locations) Actually I believe that it was Chihiro alone, who painted with her imagination, the surreal and colourful parallel and invisible universe that she wandered in… a world as detailed as a photograph and as visually dexterous as it is at times imaginatively overwhelming.pot
©緣生術數研究社 -- 術數研究 drA_?
The saddest and most haunting part of the film is in the end. Haku assures Chihiro that they will meet once more and of course this is a lie… as he makes her promise not to look back…and she goes off with her parents, who weren’t even that nice to her and off into the human world and. A part of her dies forever… the death of her(our) childhood, the loss of imagination, playfulness, birth of joy and innocence.:tlU
©緣生術數研究社 -- 術數研究 wE-s&m
Death itself is nothing... but to live life in automaton, defeated and dreamless is to die every day.2XsK`X
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©緣生術數研究社 -- 術數研究 vm
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2005/08/23 00:01pm 
IP: 已設定保密
Should discussion arise from it, it will be a philisophical one... if any...z;l5H