MovieChat Forums > Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2003) Discussion > my relatives just didn't get into the fi...

my relatives just didn't get into the film....

posted 8 years ago by ranran-001
5 replies | jump to latest

I brought this film over for the holidays last year to one of my relative's house. As soon as it started there were a ton of complaints like "what is happening?" "I don't get it," and "the person that wrote this must have been on acid." This was within the first 20 minutes and my heart sank a little. The comments kept coming "what's the point of this?" "is there supposed to be a moral?" on and on it went. By the time it ended they still said they didn't know what happened.

I honestly don't know how this film could be considered confusing, it is an easy film to follow. I know absolutely nothing about Japanese mythology and it wasn't a hard film to follow along.

I guess some films just don't work for everyone. It was a little sad that this one failed at my relative's house.

[–] PreachCaleb 8 years ago

Relatives at a Christmas party I went to had the same reaction to Howl's Moving Castle. Mind you, it was just the adults complaining. The kids were loving it.

Can't stop the signal.

[–] TheBeardedWonder 8 years ago

This isn't a holiday movie for the whole family though, I see why the reaction wasn't great. People around that time of year just want to relax, talk with family, and have something on in the background. You look away from this for a moment and the screen is filled with new locales, creatures, super powers, etc every couple seconds.

Don't get me wrong, this is a wonderful film in general. But I would never get a group of relatives together in a room around Xmas and assume they will love it.

[–] kya1 8 years ago

I suppose that animation is not everyone's cup of tea, and this one is fairly surreal at times, which also turns some people off. I know my family wouldn't be too keen on this film, so I wouldn't even attempt to show them it.

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[–] patbuddha 7 years ago

I saw this for the first time with my daughter at a Fathom Events 15th Anniversary screening. I fell asleep halfway through. So here's my problem with this movie. I had the same problem with Fantastic Beasts.

Somehow fantasy/magic is a license for anything goes. Very little attempt is made to tie anything together at a conceptual level. Maybe whatever this is is based on something that is deeply rooted in Japanese culture. As a gaijin I don't know what that is.

What I mean is this. The central premise of Jurassic Park is what if we could clone dinosaurs and put them in a theme park? To me as someone born in the United States in the late 20th century every part fits in my mind. It's compelling and within the bounds of some plausibility.

Whereas to me everything in this movie is just kind of random. How does an abandoned theme park fit with a spirit world? Okay. A guy with four arms working on some job or another? I guess. A gigantic old woman? Sure. A train floating on water. Why not?

What are the rules? What's the thematic connection underlying any of it? I can't tell and I checked out.
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[–] ira_gaines 7 years ago

Whereas to me everything in this movie is just kind of random. How does an abandoned theme park fit with a spirit world? Okay. A guy with four arms working on some job or another? I guess. A gigantic old woman? Sure. A train floating on water. Why not?

I agree that the film is disjointed but I don't think it's because of the randomness of the visuals. I believe the real problem is that it doesn't have narrative cohesion. This is a problem with many of Miyazaki's films.

The premise we're given is that Chihiro's parents are turned into pigs and she is stuck in this spirit world. That all happens in the first 20 minutes. The problem is that the story basically pauses there until the end. It has a story premise, but not an actual story. The rest is mostly just disjointed scenes that have nothing to do with the premise. What would have made narrative sense is to have Chihiro spend the rest of the film trying to find a way to escape and save her parents.