"Chihiro and her family are on their way to their new house in the suburbs when her father decides to take a shortcut along a lonely-looking dirt road. After getting out of the car and walking along a path for a while, they discover an open-air restaurant filled with food but with no workers or customers present. Mom and Dad don't hesitate to sit down and dig in, but Chihiro senses danger and refuses. As night falls, she is terrified to see the area fill with faceless spirits, but when she runs to find her parents, she discovers that they have been turned into pigs. She is found by a mysterious boy named Haku, who promises to help her. He gets her a job working in a nearby building, which turns out to be a bathhouse for the thousands of Japan's gods and spirits. Though the work is hard and the people strange, she does as well as she can. Her parents, however, are still waiting in the hotel's stockyard, and Chihiro must find a way to break the spell on them before they end up as the main course of some guest's dinner"
This is the one that broke Miyazaki into the mainstream consciousness of the West and it's one of his best (alongside Grave of Fireflies and Totoro). The visuals are stunning. The sheer depth of detail and loving effort put into each board is wonderful. The story is an old one but with stunning visuals, cute and magical characters and a solid voice cast it becomes a work of beauty and joy. A film guaranteed to lift your heart.
9/10
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