Spirited Away

Spirited Away, "Sen and Chihiro's Spiriting Away" is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film stars Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki, Takeshi Naito, Yasuko Sawaguchi, Tsunehiko Kamijo, Takehiko Ono and Bunta Sugawara, and tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood, enters the spirit world.

Ten-year-old Chohiro Ogino and her parents are traveling to their new home when her father takes a wrong turn. The movie opens with Chihiro moving to a new place. She's not happy, not looking forward to the new home and she doesn't feel appreciated or loved. She's also extremely timid, shy, and just want to hide away from the world.

All of that is about to change. Her parents are trying to find a new place to live, which sits atop a hill. After her father misses the turn to their house on top of the hill, he tries to take a shortcut and ends up at the entrance to an abandoned theme park where things go horribly wrong. Chihiro's parents end up at a restaurant and indulge themselves in a buffet which they have not been given permission to eat, against Chihiro's warning. They gorge themselves on this otherworldly food, saying they'll use their credit cards and cash to cover it. The're not worried about the price, they'll pay for it later, so they say, and they end up paying for it in the end. Their indulgent and self-pleasing behavior turns them into pigs (literally). Meanwhile, Chihiro is learning the lay of the land. While exploring, she runs into Haku, a servant to the cruel and heavy handed Yubaba. Chihiro tries to escape, shocked, horrified, and confused after she found that her parents turned into pigs. 

In a flight of panic, she finds that it's impossible for her to escape because the return parh has been flooded and replaced with an endless ocean. Not only that, unless she eats something from that world, she will disappear.

This other world that Chihiro is trapped in, is one of bourgeois decadence. It's a place where the spirits come to clean themselves and to feel rejuvenated. The only thing she can do to survive is to make herself a part of it. If she didn't partake of the world, she would have simply vanished, presumably dying.

Haku works his magic and makes it do that she won't disappear, but then tells her that the only way she can stay, is to get a job in Yubaba's bathhouse. To this ends, Chihiro is sent to the lowest floor of the bathhouse, the boiler room, to see a man and demand to see Yubaba for a job. She doesn't just stroll down the very long, very steep, and very dangerous path, she ends up involuntarily running and screaming down the stairs and descending into the lowest and harshest place of all after faltering on a briken step. Her fall into forced subservience is swift, fast, and terrifying. 

Kamaji, the man who works the boiler, put in a good word for her and helps her find assistance to visit Yubaba.

Yubaba is the kindly looking old lady who runs the bathhouse. A part of the condition that she runs the bathhouse is that she gives a jobto anyone who ask. Naturally, Yubaba's office and living space is at the highest point of the bathhouse. Her economic and social power is literally over and above everyone. The first thing that happens after Chihiro signs a contract to work is she will lose her name and her identity to Yubaba's magic.

Chihiro's new life as a servant in the bathhouse is tough. She learns how to apply herself to do well at the bathhouse that she's rewarded with a gift (some kind of medicine) from one of the spirits she cleaned. She managed to do all of that while being separated from her parents. 

One day, while working, Chihiro unknowingly invites a silent masked creature, No-Face, to the bathhouse, believing him to be a customer. A very dirty and stink spirit subsequently arrives, and Chihiro is quickly assigned to tend to the guest by her nauseated superiors. She discovers, he is actually the powerful guardian spirit of a polluted river. In gratitude for cleaning him, he gives Chihiro a magic dumpling. Chihiro is congratulated by her gleeful coworkers, who had shunned her as an outsider. Later, while most of the staff sleep, No-Face tempts a worker with gold. The greedy employee takes the bait, only to be swallowed. No-Face begins demanding food, producing gold to tempt the naive staff. As the workers swarm him, hoping to be tipped, he devours two of them and grows bigger. 

Chihiro discovers a shikigami's attacking a dragon and recognize the dragon as Haku's transformation. When a grievously-injured Haku crashes into Yubaba's penthouse, Chihiro follows him upstairs. When she reaches Haku, a shikigami that stowed away on her back transforms into Zeniba, Yubaba's twin sister. She transforms Yubaba's baby, Boh, into a mouse, creates a decoy baby, and turns Yubaba's bird creature into tiny bird. Zeniba tells Chihiro that it carries a deadly curse. After Haku dives to the boiler room with Chihiro and Boh on his back, she feeds him part of the dumpling, causing him to vomit both the seal and a black slug, which Chihiro crushed with her foot.

With Haku unconscious, Chihiro resolves to return the seal and apologize for Haku. Before she leaves the bathhouse, Chihiro confronts the now-massive No-Face and feeds him the rest of the dumpling. No-Face chases Chihiro out of the bathhouse, steadily vomiting out those he has eaten and thus gradually returning to his former self. Chihiro, No-Face, and Boh, travel to see Zeniba. Enraged at the damage caused by No-Face, Yubaba blames Chihiro for inviting him in and orders that her parents to be slaughtered. After Haku reveals that Boh is mising, he promises to retrieve Boh in exchange for Yubaba freing Chihiro and her parents.

Chihiro, No-Face, and Boh, arrive at Zeniba's house, where Zeniba, now the benevolent "Granny", reveals that Chihiro's love for Haku broke her curse and that Yubaba had used the black slug to control him. Haku appears in his dragon form and flies both Chihiro and Boh back to the bathhouse. No-face unexpectedly shows itself as a very good spinner for Zeniba and accepts her proposal to stay as a helper.

On the way back, Chihiro recalls a memory from her youth in which she had fallen into Kohaku River while trying ti retrieve her fallen shoe but was swept safely ashore. After correctly guessing that Haku is the spirit of Kohaku River (and thus revealing his real name), Haku is completely freed from Yubaba's control. When the arrive at the bathhouse, Yubaba tells Chihiro, to break the curse on her parents, she must identify them form among a group of pigs. Chihiro correctly states that none of the pigs are her parents, releasing her parents from the curse and herself from her contract with Yubaba. Haku takes her to the entrance of the spirit world and promises to see her again in the future.

Chihiro reunites with her restored parents, who don't remember what happened. They walk back to their car, which covered in fallen leaves and dust due to many days passing in their absence, and drive away.