Spirited Away

Last night I had the honor of watching



under the influence...

I have to say: this movie is made of the stuff of nightmares, and also of tufts and fragments of the subconscious, the erratic, the illogical. The first strong reaction from me was fear. There's a scene (like 15 minutes into the movie, perhaps), immediately after the sun sets, in which Chihiro (the main character) goes back to her parents. They had been eating food off tables they found in an "abandoned theme park" (not so abandoned, really), mainly ignoring their daughter. When Chihiro goes back to them, they've been turned into pigs (and disgusting, big pigs, eating uncontrollably). The scariest part (to me) is that, regardless of their form change, they keep munching away, working their way up to the countertop... then one of the attendants behind the counter, upon seeing the pigs, start swatting away at them, swatting hard... the father falls back on the floor... the scene denotes such willing debasement (sprouting from the parent's greed and gluttony), and the fact that their daughter has to watch ... that is the stuff from nightmares. What comes afterwards, at least the whole "turning invisible" deal, reminded me a bit of a bad drug trip. But I totally understood and empathized with Chihiro when she crouched at the edge of the dock and started repeating to herself "This is only a dream." I felt like doing the same.

Watching movies under the influence is sometimes a bit more vivid, you immerse yourself in them, the emotions are way more real. Tunnel vision becomes the way to watch that TV screen. I'm not sorry I did it. For all the scare I got in the first 25 minutes, the rest of the movie just took me to places slightly familiar, and I could see evident parallelisms between Spirited Away and Alice in Wonderland. Both worlds defy all logic, reason and social parameters. Both worlds encompass the myths and stories which my cradle was woven with. Be it American or Japanese culture, you recognize a dream, the bat of an eyelid, the world that spreads underneath ... in whatever language you wish. Dreams always speak loud and clear.