Spirited Away is an Academy Award winning 2001 film by the Japanese anime studio Studio Ghibli, written and directed by famed animator Hayao Miyazaki. The film received many awards, including the second Oscar ever awarded for Best Animated Feature, the first anime film to win an Academy Award, and the only winner of that award to win among five nominees (in every other year there were three nominees). The film also won the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival (tied with Bloody Sunday)





The film opens with Chihiro, a ten-year-old girl, traveling to her new home in Tochinoki, Japan, with her parents. They become lost when her father takes a "short cut". The family pulls up outside a large, mysterious building. Ignoring Chihiro's objections, the mother and father decide to explore. Chihiro reluctantly follows them through a tunnel to a strange landscape of grassy hills and old-fashioned buildings. Chihiro's father says it must be an abandoned theme park. The parents are curious and decide to explore. They soon smell food cooking, and follow their noses to a deserted stall full of different kinds of meat. Chihiro refuses to eat anything, but her parents help themselves and soon begin gorging on the food. Chihiro wanders off and finds an enormous bathhouse, the heart of the complex. She encounters a boy on a bridge who warns her to leave before dark. She runs back to the food stall, only to find that her parents have turned into pigs......


The Sound Track

The closing song, "Itsumo Nandodemo," was written and performed by Youmi Kimura, a composer and lyre-player from Osaka. The lyrics were written by Kimura's friend Wakako Kaku. The song was intended to be used for a different Miyazaki film which was never released, Rin the Chimney Painter The other 20 tracks on the original soundtrack were composed by Joe Hisaishi. His "Ano hi no Kawa" received the 56th Mainichi Film Competition Award for Best Music, the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2001 Best Music Award in the Theater Movie category, and the 16th Japan Gold Disk Award for Animation Album of the Year. Later, Hisaishi added lyrics to "Ano hi no Kawa" and named the new version "Inochi no Namae," which was performed by Hirahara Ayaka. Beside the Original Sound Track, there is also an Image Album, which contains 10 tracks.





Please Note: Some of the material used for this page is from wikipedia.com.