In terms of sound, the previous Disney Blu-ray included both dubbed English and the original Japanese in lossless 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, along with French 5.1 Dolby Digital. Spirited Away is by turns strange, mysterious, funny, endearing, and thrilling. It’s also one of the most gorgeous examples of hand-drawn animation you’ll ever see, with yet another restrained but evocative score by Joe Hisaishi. This film is very much about the need to find a balance in life. This is seen most clearly in Chihiro’s encounter with the stink spirit and also the character No Face, who distributes gold while devouring everything around him. There’s a kind of yearning for the old ways, as it becomes clear that greed and consumerism are taking a toll on the natural world. But there are larger issues being depicted here too, not the least of which reflects the generational changes in Japanese society. Its story recalls classic Lewis Carroll tales, in that a young girl is drawn into a magical realm, representing the boundary between childhood and adulthood, and must learn to navigate her way through it. Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away is the other film many consider to be Miyazaki’s best work, on a par with Princess Mononoke, and I have to confess that it’s my favorite of the Ghibli catalog.
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