It's quite interesting that, at first, Miyazaki was not interested in making 'Spirited Away', the first scenario for which is derived from a popular book of adolescent fiction. But apparently a younger woman who works at Studio Ghibli recommended it passionately to the 'sensei', and other women there had also read it and loved it when they were younger (they were probably adolescents in the early 1980s), so it caught Miyazaki's attention. The plot changed extensively, though, in developing and making it a film, since Miyazaki clearly wanted a strong post-bubble Japan theme to come out in the film.
If you get a chance anytime soon see this film on the big screen, visually and aurally it blows away anything done by Disney in the past four decades. It blows away Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter for film-making craft, too (perhaps the benefit a work has if it is so integrally linked to the director's own visions and that director has the freedom to revise and improvise the narrative).
Like so many post-modern fables, it, too, is a dream--a night journey. The complex, recurring and singular images ultimately rip through your own imaginary expections into breath-taking epiphany. Miyazaki is Japan's greatest fantasist since Miyazawa Kenji (author of 'Night Train to the Stars', one of the greatest fantasy writers of all time--I'm sure all you globalized Americans know that). With 'Princess Mononoke' and now 'Spirited Away' he can also claim to be one of its greatest filmmakers as well.
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'Spirited Away' wins Berlin Golden Bear
BERLIN (Kyodo) Hayao Miyazaki's popular animated film "Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi" ("Spirited Away") shared the Berlin Film Festival's Golden Bear prize Sunday with "Bloody Sunday," a British-Irish film about the troubles in Northern Ireland.
"This prize will be a great source of inspiration for people in the animation world," Miyazaki said in a message read out at the 52nd annual film festival in Berlin.
It is the first time for an animated film to win the top prize in Berlin, one of the world's pre-eminent film festivals.
The animated blockbuster, which was viewed by over 22 million people in Japan, shared the honor with British director Paul Greengrass' dramatization of the 1972 massacre of civil rights marchers by British troops in Northern Ireland.
"Spirited Away" is the second Japanese film to win a Golden Bear in Berlin, the first being Tadashi Imai's 1962 film "Bushido Zankoku Monogatari" ("Stories of Samurai Cruelty").
In a news conference Sunday in Tokyo, Miyazaki, who did not attend the festival, said, "It's not because it was an animation. I would like to think it was because the film itself was entertaining."
The 61-year-old director, who is famed for churning out thought-provoking animated films, including the 1997 box-office hit "Mononoke Hime" ("Princess Mononoke"), expressed gratitude that his film was honored and treated as film.
"I'm afraid animation films are still differentiated from live-action films, and I don't like that. That's why I'm happy that my work was treated as a film," Miyazaki told reporters.
The festival's jury members lauded Miyazaki's work for its rich imagination and sophisticated depiction of fantasy. Mira Nair, president of the film's international jury, remarked on the film's fusion of a strong Japanese identity with universal concepts.
"Spirited Away" is about a 10-year-old girl, Chihiro, who suddenly finds herself working in a hot-spring resort that caters to spirits and gods after she and her parents wander through a tunnel.
Since it opened in July, the film has set box-office records in Japan. As of Friday, it had earned about 29.34 billion yen.
It is expected to be shown in Europe and the United States soon.
"I thought the film was a bit too Japanese to be appreciated. But I'm interested in the fact that Europeans appreciated it," Miyazaki said.
Six animated films, including "Spirited Away," ranked in the top-10 of Japan's box-office records last year.
Film critic Tadao Sato said that although the quality of Japanese animation is known worldwide, film festivals had until now placed them on the sidelines.
"Film festivals are now forced to recognize the power of Japanese animation films. In this sense, it is a breakthrough," Sato said.
The Japan Times: Feb. 19, 2002
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Posted by Charles Jannuzi