The movie ‘Spirited Away’ was conducted by Hayao Miyazaki and released in 2001 in Japan by Studio Ghibli (Milligan). Then, it went viral thanks to the attractiveness of the character, and the messages hidden in the film. It drew the hardships and the adventure that the girl character, Chihiro experienced in the unknown world where there are no people. In the world, she faces the situation that she has to work in order not to get disappeared and to help her parents who became pig after having a lot of meals in a dining booth there. In addition, she evokes her past memory of the river by the encounter with Haku who helped her at the beginning of the story. This movie focuses on the importance of family, the dark aspect of people and also focuses on the destruction of nature by exploiting framing, wardrobe and facial expression.
Framing is well utilized to show the importance of caring about family. One example of this can be seen from when Chihiro visits Kamaji and ask him for help as soon as she strays into a different world. In this case, although she is oppressed with full of anxiety, she spontaneously attempts to make the situation better to save her parents. Besides, the moment that Chihiro visits Yubaba’s room and decides to work at Yubaba’s workplace also signals the significance of cherishing other family members. This is because she chose to work at bathhouse although she knew that she would risk the loss of her real name and her identity by working there. Furthermore, the situation that she keeps working with readiness at the bathhouse despite other employees’ discrimination towards her expresses emphasis of keeping an eye on relatives. The reason why it indicates the family importance is because she keeps working at her workplace with patience even though she is bothered by a lot of disrespectful words and her confusion to live in an unfamiliar environment for her.
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In addition, the facial expressions in this story are handled appropriately to indicate the nastiness of people who only think about their own benefit. For example, when No-Face visited the bathhouse with myriads of gold dust, their facial expressions were like starving carnivores’ face as though they would impulsively jump to the food. This is because when No-Face scattered the gold dust, they are too keen on collecting it, and their faces showed their eagerness to get a lot of gold dust as much as they could. Similarly, Yubaba’s face was turned into the faces of the hunter as soon as she recognized that No-Face had a lot of money because she was full of ambition to acquire the earnings as much as possible. Ironically, when Yubaba found out that the gold was fake and made of soil, her facial expression was filled with despair and like the face of a squirrel which realized losing their hidden food. The reason is that although she felt very pleased to grasp a lot of profit, she noticed that the gold was fake and felt unhappy to have wasted the cost that she had paid in order to get them.
Finally, the wardrobe is adopted efficiently for reminding people of the damage that people have made into the environment. For instance, when River Spirit visited the bathhouse, he was filled with much of mud and had a brown color. In this case, it indicates that people have polluted the environment in pursuit of their own convenience and benefits, and they have had inadequate consciousness in terms of the protection of nature. This is because River Spirit was making the floor and the room of the bathhouse very dirty. Moreover, when he finished washing and cleaning himself, his appearance has completely changed from the dirty mud to the crystal clear figure. This moment indicates the emerge of the original presence of the river before being polluted by mankind. This is because after being washed by hot water with medicinal herb and after becoming clean, he has emitted many amounts of rubbish which seems to be abandoned by many people who don’t mind about the atmosphere.
In conclusion, this movie applied three types of mise-en-scene effectively in order to tell the importance of stressing family values, the maliciousness of people about assets and the devastation of the atmosphere to the viewers. The characteristics of each of the scene showed these hidden messages or themes that Hayao Miyazaki may have hoped to tell people. Through this movie, we could recall the importance of re-recognizing the values and the problems we have in real life.