by Josef Steiff
So are we to believe that Mr. Miyazaki, born in 1941 to a father who was the director of Miyazaki Airplanes—active in the war effort, creating parts for Zero warplanes during World War II—wants his audience to remember that Shinto was used to support the war based on the belief in the superiority of the Japanese culture? Or that the government used Shinto to promote loyalty to an emperor who claimed to be a divine descendant of the kami and rallied his nation to follow him into a devastating world war? Shouldn’t he want his own people and the world to forget those kamikaze (god of the winds) suicide bomber efforts that were employed in the name of the emperor, who claimed to be directly descended from the original kami Sun God, to defeat allied forces? (Until the allied forces made one of the conditions of surrender that the emperor had to issue a statement saying that he wasn’t divine.) The Shinto references in Spirited Away suggest Miyazaki thinks we should do both.
As Thomas Kasulis so elegantly proposes in his book, Shinto, The Way Home, the complexity of the evolution of Shinto is not easily understood by those familiar with the philosophy let alone by those who are not. And that includes Japanese people who live on islands with an estimated one hundred thousand Shinto shrines in operation today. It’s likely that there would be substantial differences even among a Japanese audience in their understanding of the Shinto references in this film. The reason can be somewhat disentangled by using Kasulis’s distinction between existential Shinto and essentialist Shinto, which he describes as follows:When people say they are “Shinto,” are they giving a conventional name for how they happen to think, feel, and act? Or are they designating an essential part of themselves that leads them to think, feel, act in certain ways? If the former (the existential identification with Shinto), the connection with the religion is ad hoc and flexible. Their Shinto spiritual identity would then be a conventional name applying to some of their typical ideas, values, and practices. To change such an existential identity would be akin to a change in preference, taste or habit. If, by contrast, the identification with Shinto spirituality is of the essentialist form, the situation is more prescriptive than descriptive. Insofar as the essentialist identity is based on people’s true nature, they must (or should) behave in certain specified ways. The essentialist Shinto spirituality determines and prescribes, rather than simply describes, their thoughts, values, and actions. (p. 6)
To put it simply, you don’t have to be Shinto to feel Shinto. Existential Shinto means that you are open to the kami energy and the wondrous sense of mystery and awe that it inspires. You don’t have to be an official member of a National Shrine or believe in the Imperial divinity to recognize divine energy and celebrate it. Kasulis suggests all of us have felt Shinto at some point in our lives and that those experiences hold meaning for us in our human existence. He says that when we spiritually encounter mystery, something that is inexplicable, whether it’s new or something we’ve witnessed a hundred times, that feeling of awe and wonder evokes an emotional response and we are “struck” by it. He goes on to say that it’s more than “dumbfounded recognition and appreciation of an inexplicable power or presence,” but something that resonates within and awakens our awareness that what we are seeing is beyond ordinary experience. I have felt Shinto when I came face to face with a manta ray that hovered in front of me for several moments and then glided away like a dark angel. Or when I watched lightning strike the Caribbean Sea or luminescent waves rolling upon a beach at night. But these experiences aren’t limited to the natural world, they could be a piece of music that moves you profoundly or even something that evokes both fear and amazement.
Kasulis reminds us that the tension between existential Shinto and essential Shinto has always existed and at varying times in history one or the other has dominated the culture. The Japanese indigenous people had no written history and passed down the rituals and divine origin story of their existence from generation to generation. Inherent in the tradition came the honoring of not only the natural phenomena that inspired awe around them, the rocks, trees, and mountains which contained kami spirits but also in those who came before them in a belief that ancestors are sacred and could eventually become kami themselves. Miyazaki tells us he feels Shinto, as nine of out ten Japanese do, but that he also acknowledges the danger that any spiritual tradition undergoes when it is organized, prescribed, indoctrinated, and manipulated by social and political powers that use it to promote aggression. And in Spirited Away he shows us how those ideals which make Shinto uniquely Japanese have relevance and meaning to others. He references both the existential and the essentialist aspects of Shinto and enables the audience to come to the conclusion that both have value. He reminds the Japanese people to honor their cultural traditions but never to forget their past.
If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going, Any Road Will Get You There
The road that Chihiro and her parents take is fraught with the same dangers that we all face in a consumer-driven society. For those of us not familiar with Shinto, its difficult to come to terms with a spiritual belief system that is not quite a religion and not quite simply folklore, but a way of life that maintains a set of values that are almost inseparable from the identity of the Japanese people themselves. Whether we comprehend the complex aspects of Shinto and its many evolutions—from its earliest origins to its synthesis with Buddhism and Confucius influences and the separation from those into Shrine Shinto and then another transition from 1801-1945 into a more essentialist prescription known as State Shinto—remembering rather than rejecting, denying or even romanticizing Shinto traditions and values can connect our present to our past. And why is this important? The Oginos are about to find out. They have no idea where they’re going as they race into their future and no idea that Miyazaki is going to take them directly into a collision with their past. But we should all fasten our seat belts; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Once the Oginos head down that dirt path into the woods Miyazaki provides us with a visual history of Shinto in a matter of moments. Wisely, he keeps us in Chihiro’s point of view, and we learn that her understanding of Shinto is as murky as our own. She first sees a cluster of small stone shrines at the base of an ancient tree, clearly designated as being kami-filled by the offerings left in the little houses and the wood torii, two columns with a horizontal rail connecting them, which leans against the tree. The patina of moss and age recall the “humble” origins of “rural Shinto ritual” that Miyazaki references in his interview, and when they pause like tourists gazing at them through the car window, Chihiro doesn’t know what they are. Her mother has to tell her they’re little shrines that people pray to. The first thing we learn about ancient existential Shinto, what is commonly called “Folk Shinto,” is that the youth in Japan don’t even know what it is. Chihiro isn’t sensitive or responsive to the kami presence so she isn’t prepared for the changes they’re going to bring to her life.
Traveling deeper into the woods they pass an ancient statue almost hidden by the leaves, which catches Chihiro’s attention. Having statues mark the entrance of Shinto temples as guardians began when Buddhism started to assimilate into Shinto traditions, and it too is separated from the other half of its pair in the same way Shinto was later separated from Buddhism and Confucianism to “preserve” the cultural purity of the tradition. A visual reference to what came to be known as “Shrine Shinto.” Soon they’re halted by the missing half of the guardian pair, who now serves as a bollard, one of those things that are placed in rows to obstruct traffic when you can go no further. The statue is an ancient symbol of Shinto placed into a modern context, and it directly blocks their way.
Next, confronted by a long tunnel, the parents forge ahead leaving Chihiro behind. But faced with being left behind or staying with them, she follows, hanging onto her mother and everything she’s ever known for dear life. The tunnel echoes eerily and emptily and when they emerge into the abandoned train station there’s no doubt that it’s a memory straight out of Miyazaki’s own chi
ldhood. It’s a painstaking re-creation of a nostalgic 1940s era, from the light fixtures to the wooden benches, and one that clearly harkens back to the time when Shinto was used to unite the Japanese and ready them for war: a clear visual reference to “State Shinto.” We’re reminded of the essentialist era of Shinto—lest we forget. Kasulis makes the argument, just as Miyazaki does, that it’s important to do both: “. . . because of the distinctive tensions between its existential and essentialist forms, Shinto presents us with the two faces of nostalgia. There is the kind of nostalgia nurtured to lend authority to state control. And there is the kind of nostalgia that beckons us back to a form of connectedness that has been all but erased by the rise of scientific thinking, dependence on technology, and consumerism.” (Kasulis, Shinto: The Way Home, p. 170).
Discussing his own use of nostalgia in the film, Miyazaki says:I believe nostalgia has many appearances and that it’s not just the privilege of adults. An adult can feel nostalgia for a specific time in their lives, but I think children too can have nostalgia. It’s one of mankind’s most shared emotions. It’s one of the things that make us human and because of that it’s difficult to define. It was when I saw the film Nostalghia by Tarkovsky that I realized that nostalgia is universal. Even though we use it in Japan, the word ‘nostalgia’ is not a Japanese word. The fact that I can understand that film even though I don’t speak a foreign language means that nostalgia is something we all share. When you live, you lose things. It’s a fact of life. So it’s natural for everyone to have nostalgia. (Midnight Eye Interview with Tom Mes, 2002)
Perhaps Miyazaki is not so strictly focused on a Japanese audience after all. That dripping water fountain invites the Oginos to resuscitate and renew their existential Shinto spirituality, but the sound of the train in the distance will remind them of the things they’ve lost as they emerge from the train station into a green field with more ancient statues half buried and nearly forgotten. The juxtaposition of the sound of the train followed by another visual reminder of folk Shinto evokes the every day connectedness of the spiritual world to the modern one. The train is always present in the film, even after Chihiro has crossed into the world of the kami she watches it passing from her room in the bath house. This haunting reminder of essentialist Shinto is a reoccurring image and becomes one of the strongest images that Miyazaki uses to return both Chihiro and his audience to what he hopes we understand is the existential feeling of Shinto.
As the Oginos ascend the field and cross a dry riverbed with only a small trickle of water, there is yet another allusion to existential Shinto with an old building constructed of stone that can only be one last historical reference to their ancient past. Last chance Ogino family to turn back! But father forges ahead and says it must be an old theme park abandoned after the bubble burst on the Japanese economy. (Miyazaki has degrees in economics and political science and references that time in Japanese history from 1986 to 1990 when real estate and stock prices became hugely inflated and then collapsed. The down turn lasted for more than a decade and prices bottomed out in 2003 until they went even lower in the global crisis that began in 2008.)
Once the parents climb the stairs and pass under the torii, they have entered the mythical representation of present day Shinto as it exists in Japan today. Here we see ancient buildings side by side with electric lights and neon signs. There’s a blend of primeval and modern architecture that co-exists in harmony with Nature. But it’s deserted. No humans are here, and in this place, the existential and the essential merge. As her parents race away to find the source of the delicious food they smell, Chihiro hesitates to enter this strange new world. The fat frog statue is the last thing she sees before she passes beneath the torii. The Japanese word for frog is kaeru, a homonym for a word meaning “to return home.” Her entry into the land of kami is marked by the torii, a reminder for people lost in the details of every day life and disconnected to the spiritual that the way home is here.
In the first minutes of Spirited Away we’ve traveled with the Ogino family through the existential and essential aspects of Shinto from the dawn of time to the present day. Miyazaki has provided visual references to both the existential primordial beginnings of Shinto to the dark period in history when Shinto was used by the government to strengthen national solidarity through patriotic observance at shrines. It’s clear that he believes the time has come for his country to reconnect to their ancient spiritual beliefs, but by having the train always in the background, that he doesn’t want them to forget what that era in time evokes, and the tragic losses that occurred because of it.
It Is Only with the Heart that One Can See Rightly; What Is Essential Is Invisible to the Eye
Because Miyazaki doesn’t begin a film with a clear storyline or script in place, he allows his imagination to create the story without logic by drawing storyboards. He’s joked that anyone can tell a story that is logical, but that the trick is making a film which is not. He must trust that his intuition will guide him in his process and that the plot will reveal itself by digging deep into his subconscious. This is exactly how Chihiro must learn to survive as well. She can’t survive on her own, she must make new friends, sacrifice to help them, and in return accept their help as well. In the beginning of the story, Chihiro is a sullen fearful girl, who is mourning the loss of her old life. In the opening scene in the car, her father calls her name, and she doesn’t respond, until he calls to her again. She doesn’t value her identity or what it represents until she loses it. By the end of the film, Chihiro has remembered her name that was stolen by the witch Yu-baaba, when she finds the card from her friends that is in the pocket of her old clothes. In these two pivotal scenes Miyazaki demonstrates what aspects of Shinto must be reconciled for the Japanese people as well. To lose your name is to have your identity erased, and the ancient connections to Shinto have been nearly lost for the people of Japan. They too have lost their cultural identity and their connection to their past. Miyazaki uses Shinto to evoke the memories of his culture and asks the Japanese people to remember the old traditions and customs and to find meaning in them in the present.
Chihiro must first become purified, and she accomplishes this by the physical labor of working in the bathhouse and cleansing the Stink Spirit, who turns out to be a River God filled with trash. She later remembers an encounter that she had as a child with Haku, and this helps him to remember his name. She has become receptive to the kami and responsive to it and with her sacrifice in helping No-Face, Haku, the soot sprites, and even Yu-baaba’s Baby, she has demonstrated her purity of heart and mind which the Japanese call, makoto no kokoro. As Kasulis tells us,As a human being in the land of the kami one is a portion of the sacred; one is an intrinsic part of the kami filled, tama-charged world in such a way that, if the person is pure, he or she mysteriously mirrors that whole. To be genuinely receptive to the presence of kami and responsive to it, to make full use of the holographic entry point of the torii, people must first be makoto. Only then can they recognize how kami is a part of what they themselves are. They will reflect kami and not merely reflect on kami. The second part of the term,”kokoro”—the “heart and mind” that is to be genuine or true—requires special attention. (Shinto: The Way Home, p. 24)
In the Palm of Your Hand
There are really three resolutions to this film, though they all say that it’s important to remember where we come from so that we don’t lose our way. In the Japanese version Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, Zeniba, the twin sister of Yu-baaba, gives Chihiro a hair band woven by her friends to keep her safe and protected. She doesn’t remember what happened to her in the bathhouse or her experiences in the land of the kami, but the dust on the car and the hair band from her friends recall for us that as Zeniba told her, “Nothing that happens is ever forgotten.” The experiences that she had were real, they weren’t a dream and the changes they effected will be carried into her future. She will remember that it takes more than just the efforts of a single individual t
o overcome adversity; it takes the accumulated knowledge of her cultural history to renew spiritual awareness.
And in the Disney version of Spirited Away, Zeniba tells her something quite different. “Once you’ve met someone you never really forget them, it just takes a while for your memories to return.” America isn’t a culture that originated from a single spiritual tradition, it was founded on principles that honor and protect our individual right to blend our cultural identities with others to create something completely new. What Zeniba says in the English-language film becomes something very different from the original Japanese version, and in the final scene Chihiro does remember what has happened in the kami world. When her Dad tells her starting school will be a little scary, she says bravely, “I think I can handle it.” An American audience wants the fantasy world to recede, but not be forgotten. The Japanese instinctively know that it is always there.
And the third ending of the film is the place that Miyazaki has said is where the film ends for him:. . . what for me constitutes the end of the film, is the scene in which Chihiro takes the train all by herself. That’s where the film ends for me. I remember the first time I took the train alone and what my feelings were at the time. To bring those feelings across in the scene, it was important to not have a view through the window of the train, like mountains or a forest. (Midnight Eye Interview with Tom Mes, 2002)