Jessica Buettner
Staff Writer
Every Wednesday night, the Film Appreciation Club presents a different film for the students to enjoy. Since its start last year, the club has shown a variety of films from timeless classics like Jaws and Indiana Jones to films with cult followings such as Mad Max: Fury Road and Pulp Fiction. This week, the film appreciation club decided to do something a little bit different as they got the chance to watch the film, Spirited Away.
Spirited Away is a film made by Studio Ghibli, which is the same production company that produced films such as My Neighbor Totoro, Castle in the Sky, Kiki’s Delivery Service and a few other classic Japanese films. This film is about a young girl who moves to a new town with her parents and they somehow get stuck in the spirit world. The parents get turned into pigs as punishment for eating the food meant for the spirits, while the girl has to work with the spirits in order to get back to the human world.
Sophomore Brendan Ouimet, had the chance to see this movie for his east Asian history course.
“I was told to write an essay about the film because it discussed a lot about the Shinto religious aspects that are expressed throughout it all,” stated Ouimet.
While there were those who were unfamiliar with the film, there were also people who chose to see it again because they thought it was at timeless tale.
“I have seen various films before that have been made by this studio, but this is my all-time favorite Studio Ghibli film,” commented Senior Haniah Jasso. It has been around for a really long time and people do enjoy it as the years go by more and more.
When movie-goers first watch the film, they think it’s going to be weird because of the many introductions of the characters that they get to meet throughout the film. In retrospect, there are parts of the film that really show symbolism about our world today.
“I really liked how one of the settings of the film is a bathhouse and that is a place where the spirits can go to replenish themselves,” stated Ouimet on his view on the symbolism that is expressed in the film.
Even though the characters and plot throughout the film don’t really make a lot of sense in the beginning of the movie, it starts to get clearer as the film goes on. For example, there are parts of the film where a strange character may show up, but that character actually holds some symbolistic matter.
“My favorite part of the film of the film was when the river spirit came to take a bath and it was completely filthy due to pollution caused by man,” said Jasso.
There may be those people out there who think the film will turn out to be weird because the film comes from a different culture that exists on the other side of the world.
“Spirited Away is totally different because it comes from a different culture, but it really does have beautiful animation and meaningful themes,” Jasso states about the film. “The fact that it’s unpredictable can make someone want to keep watching the film.”
The Film Appreciation Club here at Benedictine really does show a variety of films that are enjoyable for all audiences. The next film showing will be The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and it will be held in Birck Hall room 112 on Wednesday, September 27th at 7:30 p.m.
