When exploring their new neighbourhood, 10-year-old Chihiro and her parents unwittingly stumble into a magical spirit world. With her parents turned into pigs, Chihiro must embark on a perilous, surreal journey to save them, in which she finds work at a bath house, and encounters a dragon and a witch. With a nod to Alice in Wonderland, Spirited Away is Miyazaki’s much-admired Oscar-winning masterpiece.

“Spirited Away sets its intimations of mortality, the decline of a culture and the loss of nature against one of the most sumptuous and dazzling mises en scène ever created in cinema – in the bathhouse of the gods, where the initially timorous young heroine goes to find work in order to rescue her parents who have been cursed by a magic spell. This is an enchanting and exciting coming-of-age story that can be enjoyed by all ages, but the subdued, lambent melancholy of the movie’s final third, with its train ride into the shadows, is a tour de force of what animation can do.“ Susan Napier

“This is not only as good as animation film gets – this is simply cinema at its best.“ Anne Gjelsvik

“Joe Hisaishi’s enchanting score, the watercolour-like tableaux, and Miyazaki’s trademark trust in his audience to grasp the essence of a moment without any dialogue – aesthetic, tonal and emotional perfection.“ Alan Mattli

Film	Year	Director
God's Own Country	2017	Francis Lee
Portrait of a Lady on Fire	2019	Céline Sciamma
The Arbor	2010	Clio Barnard
Don't Look Now	1973	Nicolas Roeg
Pink Flamingos	1972	John Waters
Moonlight	2016	Barry Jenkins
Nuts in May	1976	Mike Leigh
American Splendor	2003	Shari Berman, Robert Pulcini
Spirited Away	2001	Hayao Miyazaki
Kes	1969	Ken Loach

Jason Barker

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