Spirited Away Review
Excellent
Bizarre events unfold with an easy inevitability in the world of Spirited Away, director Hayao Miyazaki's latest anime opus. Miyazaki's heroine Chihiro is a modern-day Alice, trying to make sense of a fantastic and threatening looking glass world. But Spirited Away shares the soul of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, if the chocolate factory was replaced by a giant spa for stressed out ghosts. Like Charlie in Wonka's factory, Chihiro spends two hours navigating a byzantine bathhouse, transcending danger and chaos with innocent courage and naïve common sense. Spirited Away's imagination, visual brilliance, and humanity make this trip one of the most satisfying film experiences of the year. 
Spirited Away begins with the young Chihiro reluctantly accompanying her family as they explore a deserted amusement park. The girl's parents are seduced by a feast set up in one of the park's food stands and eventually turn into pigs. At sunset Chihiro is transported into an alternate phantom universe filled with lumbering radish men, the shrill and controlling witch Yubaba (voiced by Suzanne Pleshette in her finest performance since Oh God, Book II), and a trio of bouncing, disembodied heads. Looking for a way to free her parents and find a way home keeps Chihiro exploring this world long enough to uncover enough strange and amazing creatures to keep us glued to the screen for the duration.
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