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Monday, August 25, 2003

Steven DenBeste writes a sparkling review of Miyazaki's latest masterpiece, Spirited Away. I couldn't agree more.

I'm no anime geek, but this was one very enjoyable movie. I've probably watched it about four times already. The film is good for all ages, the images are creative and wonderful and the music adds perfectly to the experience, as it does in all great films. DenBeste eschews a plot summary, which is a good idea, leaving it at a recommendation of "don't rent, buy." I'm a little nervous about recommending a film too highly for fear of getting the reader's hopes up too high, only to have the film be an inevitable let-down, but what else is there to say when a movie really is so good? It's an experience.

One issue I take with DenBeste - he does what many do, forgoing the dubbing in favor of sub-titles. People do this often because they look down on the dubbing as cheesy (not saying that's DenBeste's reason) or thinking that dubbing is a lazy-man's solution. Well don't worry about it in this case. My Japanese wife, who's usually hyper-critical about these things, actually prefers the English voices to the Japanese. She feels they're more appropriate to the characters. She also feels the translation is quite good and that you're not missing anything by listening in English [Edit: Actually, that's a bit of an over-statement. There are cultural concepts and the like that simply can't be translated properly - true for dub or sub - but on the whole, Disney succeeds at doing a very conscientious job of remaining true to Miyazaki's intent.]. That happens to be opposite of how she felt with Princess Mononoke, which she felt was poorly translated. Sub-titles have some of the same problems as dubbing - they still need to fit the text into the time available, and make it quickly understood - there's no more time to expand on unfamiliar concepts with titles than there is with a dub.

So, grab the film, unplug the phone, turn on the English sound-track, and enjoy the experience.

Update: Roger L. Simon has his own Miyazaki story, in comments here and with pic on his own site.

3 Comments

My personal Miyazaki story:

I was in Tokyo last November scouting locations for a film I may or may not be making (not an uncommon experience). Because the story takes place in 1890 (Meiji Period), we were taken to one of the few extant Meiji streets, a museum of sorts on the outskirts. Suddenly Sheryl turned to me and said: "Wasn't that the bathhouse from Spirited Away?" She was pointing to the building at the end of the street. It was. Then we realized the whole street was the model for the film. We walked into a building and there was a Miyazaki museum of sorts. Now I am something of a workaholic, but I have seen nothing like this. The drawings for Spirited Away were piled so high they seemed like the work of a veritable army of artists, but they were only Miyazaki's. Incredible. It made this novelist-filmmaker-blogger-sometime journalist feel like a lazy bum. (BTW, I am member of the Academy and voted for Spirited Away for Best Picture last year, not just Best Animated Feature).

Neat story, thanks! The personal feel of the film really is amazing. Every single shot just has that caring, personal touch of the artist etched into it.

Dubbing/Subtitling are integral part of cultural transfer between all countries.
Though the debate is always between preference of dubbing or subtitling each of it require high level of artistic/technical input to ensure the final output is more local in every sense.

Dubbing brings more life to characters of a film than subtitles though a bad dubbed film can be a nightmare.

Few Dubbing studios ensure that the voices are casted at par to original.This sometimes avoided due to budgetary/Scheduling problems.

thanks,
Lawrence Vishnu
CEO
Media Movers, Inc.
Dubbing/Subtitling/Voice over


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