I recently watched “Sprit Away – English version.” I had previously watched Spirit Away almost two decades ago. I recalled it as an exciting adventure film with few messages such as environmental stewardship and greed. My niece recently started watching Miyazaki’s movies, my neighbor Totoro and Ponyo, which made me want to watch Miyazaki’s films again.
It is interesting to discover how our cumulative experience and knowledge influence our perspective toward books or movies. This time, I had a different view of this film from the last time I watched it. The characters were carefully developed throughout the story. Miyazaki intentionally leaves some essential elements blank so that anyone can fill them in. Now everyone has different interpretations of the movie. After I re-watched this movie, I decided to do a literary analysis on this film from a Japanese perspective. For this blog, I focused on the following two points of the film.
– Who is Haku?
– What is the hidden motivation of the main character?
It is critical to understand the relationship of Chihiro to her parents before talking about Haku. Chihiro seems to have affection toward both of her parents just like a child, while her mother is distant to Chihiro. The mother did not show concern for Chihiru’s safety. For example, the mother did not check whether Chihiro passed the creek safely or not. In the scary place, Chihiro was disturbed. Just as a typical child would do, Chihiro held onto the arms of her mother. Instead of holding the daughter’s hand, the mother complained not to cling to her arm, which was an un-motherly-like behavior.
The next important character in this movie is Haku, the river god who helps her. Haku appeared in front of Chihiro early in the film, right after her parents turned into pigs. Miyazaki left Haku’s appearance in front of Chihiro ambiguous, so we must fill the detail ourselves.
When Chihiro returned the golden seal to Zeniba, Zeniba told Chihiro the spell on it was gone. Then, Zeniba exclaimed that only love could break her spell. What kind of love was that? Why was Haku so willing to help Chihiro from the beginning of her adventure? When we think about these questions, was there “a biological love” between them. Haku was Chihiro’s brother? Sometimes these spirits (Kami) can be created from people’s wishes. Sometimes spirits are created when one sacrifices one’s life for another.
When I was young, my grandmother told me a story about a girl who lost her way in the woods. She ended up among many flowers where she met an older woman there who said to the girl,
Do you see teardrops on the flower?
A girl somewhere just gave her food to her younger sisters, even though she was also starving.
Do you see the tear, that is the tear from the girl?
Do you see the mountain?
A man sacrificed his life to save the villagers. So, he became a mountain.
When people sacrifice something, they make a flower to grow.
When people sacrifice their lives, they turn into Mountains.
Now, go home.
There are reasons why I think Haku was Chihiro’s biological brother. Haku seems willing to risk his life to save Chihiro from the beginning, yet Haku remembers nothing except Chihiro’s name. Zeniba told Chihiro that the spell was removed because of love. Zeniba repeated “Love” twice, and this is important.
When Chihiro was riding on Haku, the dragon, fragments of memories flashed through her head – her pink shoes were carried away by the river’s current. Then, there is a hand with a white T-shirt that pulled her from the river. Chihiro wondered why she could not recall the memory earlier. Chihiro almost died from drowning in the past, and he could not remember it. It is documented that some traumatic events can create memory loss associated with the traumatic events. Health professionals address the symptom as Trauma-related dissociation, a survival mechanism of forgetting the event that is so overwhelming that one can no longer cope (International Society for Study of Trauma and Dissociation, n.d.). With few seconds of information, I could formulate the following hypothesis.
When Chihiro was younger, she nearly drowned in a river. Her brother, Haku, drowned in the river when he was trying to save Chihiro. With the overwhelming traumatic event of near-death experience and the loss of her brother, Chihiro could not remember the event at all. Chihiro’s mother is distant subconsciously because she somehow felt that Chihiro was responsible for her son’s death. According to Foster (2003), there are some common personality traits – they tend to be responsible for the death of someone close. This trait is not clearly stated in the text, so we need to fill in this blank to make sense of the character. Unfortunately, the characters, such as Haku, are rarely the protagonist. Instead, their death is often used to move the plot forward.
After sacrificing his life for his sister, Haku turned into the Kohaku River. Haku is the river’s name. Spirits don’t remember their name, why they died or what they were doing before they turned into a spirit. After sacrificing his life for his sister, Haku turned into the Kohaku River. Haku is the river’s name. Spirits don’t remember their name, why they died or what they were doing before becoming a spirit. Chihiro says that the Kohaku River no longer exists because of the new apartment complexes where the river used to be. It must be at least a few years that have passed since the traumatic event. Her parents are moving away from the old town to start a new life to rebuild the family relationship because some family problems are incurred from their son’s death. They may be moving because the river no longer exists.
Chihiro starts her adventure to save her parents, then to save Haku. These are the stated motivation of the heroes in the movie. There is a common trait among parents, Chihiro, and Haku in the spirit world. All of them seek an establishment place. Chihiro and her parents are moving away from the home they lived. Haku lost the river he used to haunt. I think the hidden motivation of the hero was to find the next place to inhabit. Since Chihiro could not remember her brother’s death, she moves forward (grown) by placing how someone sacrificed his life for her in the past.
Neither parents nor Chihiro will have a clear memory of their disappearance. They will continue with their life after they moved into a new home.
In Japan, many folklores spoke about Kamikakushi, spirited away. The Japanese title of this movie is “Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakishi.” Kamikakushi means “hidden by the gods,” and people often use the word to explain the disappearance of people and their reappearance. Many returned with either fuzzy memories or no memories of their disappearance. The folktales were made so that the parents or people close to the missing people could deal with the tragic disappearance of someone they love (Matsuura, 2019).
There is personal development in Chihiro her adventures in the spirit world. When Chihiro’s father said to Chihiro,” A new home and a new school? It is a bit Scary”, Chihiro replied. “I think I can handle it.” We will never know whether she remembers her past after she is out from the spirit world. She may remember her traumatic events. Even she remembers her traumatic event, and I feel that Chihiro could make peace in her mind to move on with her life. I think Haku left the spirit world where he was trapped and came back to Chihiro’s world to protect her as her protective spirit (Shyugorei) just as promised to Zeniba – This is an ending I imagined after revisiting the film.
This is the second time I did a literary analysis. Literature is just like art. The key to understanding the literature is the motivation behind the techniques the creator intentionally used. Miyazaki left out what happened to them or Haku for the movie. So, this will be up to the audience to fill in the blank – that is the exciting part of literary analysis. And, it is interesting to find out how I come up with a different perspective from what I remembered from 20 years ago.