Is there some hidden meaning the movie “Spirited Away”? It seems that the whole plot is based on symbols of another story or possibibly true event.
The meaning of the movie is not particularly obscure. It has a message about the value of hard work, loyalty, moderation,independence and so on. There is an environmental sub-text as well. In general the film is a critique of some aspects of contemporary Japan (or maybe modern life in general) that Miyazaki doesn’t care for.
However I am not sure of the meaning of individual scenes or characters. For instance what do the shadow-people in the train scene represent? What about No-face? I have some hunches but I would be interested in what other people have to say.
Disclaimer: Me tired. Me not thinking the deep thoughts when me tired.
My No Face interpretation is in the other Spirited Away thread, now showing at a message board near you.
My shadow people interpretation, OTOH, is, to date, unposted, probably because it’s so ill-formed at the moment (and I think I just ran out of commas).
One thought is that these are representations of the salarymen/working stiffs that you see on your commute every day. You see them, you acknowledge their personal space, but you don’t really know anything about them. (One can even venture as far to say that these people are vaguely threatening in their anonymity - a theory that holds more weight if you thought, watching the film, even for a second, that they could/would cause Chihiro any harm.)
One of the things that gives this interpretation at least some merit is how long the camera lingers on the little shadow girl outside the train. Granted it’s only long by comparison to how briefly we see everybody else outside the train, but it is shot, IMHO, as an approximation as what a person (I’d say Chihiro, but she wasn’t really looking out the window) would see if they were indeed focusing on the person and keeping one’s eye on her as the train passed. Since SA is primarily a children’s movie, focusing on another child makes sense, as this is what kids do in real life.
That being said, although this theory makes sense to me on some levels, it still feels like I’m missing something. Oh well…