It can be said that it is one of my favorite movie from Hayao Miyazaki
This film surprised me no matter how many times I have watched
These are few parts in the film I like
First, Hayao Miyazaki presents Yubaba who has strong maternal instinct towards her little baby although she is a witch who only cares for her business and profit.
She behaves fierce and overbearing towards others in the bathhouse but always shows her soft side while taking care of her baby.
However, when the No Face comes to the bathhouse and finds interests in Chihiro but she doesn't accept the gold he provides like anyone else, Chihiro feeds No Face a medicine that makes him vomits and so causes the bathhouse into a mess where Yubaba loses her profit and she is mad with it.
For that moment, she never realizes her baby isn't the real baby until Haku tells her.
This shows how greedy is she and desires on wealth and power instead of family.
This strongly represents the society nowadays which we are easily get blindfolded with the power of profit and material possessions until we are getting less concern on what are supposed to be more important to us.
Other than that, this can be seen through Chihiro's parents as well. Chihiro's parents take the food presented on the table without asking permission before eating them. They strongly believe nothing matters as money can solve everything. However, they turn into pigs as punishment because of too much food or can be said as too much greedy they have taken. Therefore, Chihiro is forced to work with Yubaba in order to save her parents.
In the bathhouse, which can be presented as today's society. Everyone in the bathhouse must work for Yubaba. Once if someone doesn't work anymore, he or she will turn into a pig. He/she will live a lifeless life, without any goals, keeps eating and sleeping until he/she is fat enough to be killed and served to the customers. It is similar to the social reality as you will be out of step with the society when you no longer work hard to live your life.
Next, I found No Face is similar to most of us as youngsters in today's society. No Face is unable to express himself or tells his thought to Chihiro, but at the same time, he has the power of making a lot of golds to fulfill the greedy of people in the bathhouse to get a sense of respects or attention from others. But deeply inside himself, this character is lonely and attempts to get relationship with others only by fulfilling their greed. He is only able to speak with the frog's voice after he has swallowed the frog into his stomach. Isn't this similar to many of us? The youngsters might have a certain ability or strength in some fields with high IQ and knowledge, however, we are poor at communicating, dealing with people or expressing ourselves.
Additionally, one of the obvious message delivered by Hayao Miyazaki is the polluted environment when the River Spirit comes to the bathhouse and it is dirty and gets stuck with trash. However, the people are scared off and distance themselves away from this dirty customer. Isn't it ridiculous as we human beings pollute the environment ourselves, but when it comes to problems or natural disasters, we distance ourselves away from responsibilities.
Furthermore, I believe the strongest message in this film is to remember the real you as in Chihiro must always remember her real name in order to escape from Yubaba. In the bathhouse, everyone has forgotten their real name. They have become materialists and always pursue for wealth. Many of us might have dreams that wish to be accomplished, however, people are getting less motivated to achieve their goals which affected by the surroundings and slowly forget who they really are. In the film, Lin once mentions she would escape from the bathhouse one day, but her name has been taken away by Yubaba. Same to Kamajii when he gives Chihiro few of train tickets. Perhaps, he has dreams to escape from Yubaba back in those days too?
The best part I like the most is when Chihiro is taking train to meet Zeniba. We can see the neon signs shine brightly all along the way. But it shows such a huge contrast as the scene is so quite and lonely. Every passenger doesn't speak a word, they are like just a soul of themselves.
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