Therapist Reacts to SPIRITED AWAY

How can you be brave in the face of fear? What is the key to working through hardship?

Licensed therapist Jonathan Decker and filmmaker Alan Seawright are jumping into the fantastical world of Spirited Away. They talk about Chihiro’s journey from fearing everything to being incredible brave, and how she works through her fears to achieve great things. They discuss how Studio Ghibli movies have a magical balance of being nonsensical and weird but somehow relatable to everyone. And they learn how bath houses work.

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Cinema Therapy is:
Written by: Megan Seawright, Jonathan Decker, and Alan Seawright
Produced by: Jonathan Decker, Megan Seawright, Alan Seawright, and Corinne Demyanovich
Director of Photography: Bradley Olsen
English Transcription by: Anna Preis

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[pigpjs]

One of the things that makes this movie magical is how appropriate Chihiro behaves for a 10 year old. It makes the stakes feel real. She isn't some wise sage child or a complete brat. She is complex and interprets the world as a 10 year old would.

[AlakaxamM]

Cihiro's parents' lack of fear and respect was a warning about ignoring culture and traditions. Chihiro's mom started to tell her about the shrine statues and then just waved off the idea. The theme of forgetting one's identity leading to their downfall is prevalent throughout the film.
The river spirit, by contrast, NEVER forgot who he was, even though no one else recognized him. It's a detail I've always loved about this film.

[KelciDComics]

Fun fact to add to the name-stealing discussion: Chihiro's name in the Japanese language is written with multiple characters. But when Yubaba steals her name, Yubaba takes all the characters except one that, when by itself, is pronounced "Sen, " which means thousand. She's literally reducing Chichiro to a number. Which tells you everything you need to know about how the witch sees the people in her employ.

[TrashBunBun]

I've re-watched this movie a MILLION times and only just now noticed in the end when Chihiro's mother said "Don't worry, everything's going to be okay, " the hair tie that was given to her by Zeniba glowed and spread through her hair. That's such an AMAZING touch since the hair tie had a spell to protect her. I wonder if that was a sneaky way of saying the magic still carried on to the real world and she would be protected by the people she befriended.

[floof_croissant]

“I love this film and I couldn’t possibly explain why” pretty much how I feel for every Studio Ghibli movie ever 😂

[kaitlynfoster]

Spirited Away started as a bedtime story that Hayao Miyazaki was telling to a friend’s ten year old daughter. He got inspired to continue it and make it a movie. This was written for a child. To give a small girl a hero.

[mwester]

Funfact; Miyazaki said in an interview that the real reason Chihiro stared at the tunnel at the end was because she had forgotten everything that happened. It was part of her breaking the curse and leaving the other world. That's also part of the reason why she wasn't allowed to look back as she and her family were leaving. It would have broken the magic and she would be trapped once more. Pretty scary.

[madeleinereads]

I like that many of Miyazaki's movies have environmental themes. It's powerful when Chihiro sees that the stink spirit turns out to be a river spirit severely hurt by pollution. In a behind-the-scenes video I saw, Miyazaki said that the river/stink spirit was based on his own experiences cleaning a river when he was younger. He was part of a team that pulled tons of trash (including a bicycle) from the river.

[edenborden]

No face's greed is such a compelling story. Especially when he echoes, "I want Sen, I want Sen, " because the ultimate form of greed is to posess a person. He is lonely and tries to fill that space with power, money, food, and adoration. But ultimately what he wants is a friend. That's why it's so lovely that the end of his arc is to live in a little cottage with a kind old witch who knows how to call people out and how to give all the love in her heart.

[ThinlyCut]

Honestly, the most beautiful thing that I love most about Ghibli films is how well they romanticize living. For people who are depressed, it makes the most simple thing absolutely freaking magical, and whimsical. It reminds me of the beauty of a simple life, and it makes me fall in love with living.

[stephaniewu]

Spirited Away tells how scary it is to grow up: moving cities, getting a job, losing your name, working with strange people you don't know. But Chihiro showing bravery through all of it is some of the best cinematic story telling out there. There's a reason this movie still holds up more than two decades later. Thank you for delving into more anime films!

[aceaster]

Ya'll made me realize something about the symbolism in this movie. Chihiro goes from not being able to cross a simple stream at the beginning of the movie to literally helping out TWO whole water/river spirits. Such an interesting way to show her growth. Not being able to cross a small stream to being completely surrounded by water of her own will.

[ima.ekenes]

For me, No-Face represents loneliness. It can feel like hunger, and it can feel like the solution is to give everything the others want to make them like you. But what he really needed was to be seen, and to be met with compassion. She became friends with loneliness.

[cate]

Some cultural context to this movie. crossing a river via the red bridge (as we see when Chihiro and her family moves through the abandoned station into the literal spirit world) is actually a part of Shintoism where it's thought that crossing the bridge is moving from the physical/material world to the world of spirits. It's also similar to the red shinto gates we see and the red bridge into the spirit bathhouse. They translate the word "kami" into spirits in the film, but kami is a traditional Japanese spirit or life that is imbued in every object, living and nonliving, and is a form of indigenous animism. The kami in the film treated as guests because they come back to the spiritual world after enduring the defilement of the material world and are given baths as a form of cleansing the filth and grime that comes from said materialism -- Miyazaki is a huge environmentalist, as seen with most of his films though notably with Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke, and the filthy stink spirit is the kami embodiment of human pollution. His actual form is a river spirit, similar to Haku, but it's been continuously defiled until even bathing doesn't help until Chihiro literally goes in there and cleans the junk from his literal innards.

the whole of this film is a huge criticism on materialism and greed; of defilement, both physical and spiritual, and the necessity to cleanse as we go further into what is known as "modernity, " in the western sense. Japan's economic development, especially after the war, is also the main backdrop of the film, as we see with the abandoned station/building that Chihiro and her family walk through. So it can also be taken as allegorical to a wider social problem in reconciling the rise of capitalism and materialism while balancing the need to protect and honor nature and the environment around us.

[kaseyareda]

In one interview Hayao mentioned that at the end what made her look back after the tunnel was the fact that her soul remembers her growth even tho she herself doesn't anymore. So yeah, she doesn't remember what happened on the other side of the tunnel. But even tho most times we don't remember all of our experiences, we stay with the changes that they made in us.

[timelordacaelus]

20:24 An explanation for No-Face that I've come to really like is that he's a house spirit. Specifically he's a spirit that reflects the state of the household. He grows fat and monstrous because the household is consumed by greed, competition, and lead by Ubaba's abusive and controlling hand. Further emphasized by the fact that he only calms down again once he's both expunged the people he's eaten, and left the bath house entirely.

[leafyveins]

I always saw No Face as a representation of how being exposed to people who are only interested in you for your wealth or status and how those horribly toxic relationships turn people into monsters. Also, I saw it as a way to say, "It's okay to live a quiet life with only a few friends." This movie really is a masterpiece.

[medchan]

Miyazaki once explained that he created Spirited Away for a young girl in his life (can't remember if it was a niece or daughter of a friend). He said that he wanted to make a movie for her where she could be the main character just as herself, without super powers or special abilities, and could overcome everything just as a normal girl.

[danielhale]

I like the scene where she carries the coal for the little spirit that struggled to carry it, and all the other spirits respond by feigning collapse so she'll do their work too. Sometimes when someone needs help, it's really important to not simply do the work for them.

[Daniel_Schmaniel]

On the subject of Chihiro's gratitude to the witch, I think it is more complex than simply being grateful for hardship. It's true that the witch did many horrible things, however without her Chihiro would have died in the spirit world. Yubaba plays unfairly, but at least she gives Chihiro a chance, and Chihiro recognizes and appreciates this.

I think this is an important part of the virtue gratitude. You cannot take any goodness no matter how small for granted. Nothing is guaranteed and you are not entitled to any measure of kindness in this world.