Spirited Away-Task 4: Key scene analysis

Scene 1: In this scene Chihiro and her family are moving to a new house. We see that Chihiro isn't happy about starting a new life, but her parents, try to show her the positives. They get out of the car and explore an over-grown tunnel. Chihiro is represented as scared, timid, and stroppy. This is common in young girls as they show them as being weaker than older characters.
While she is in the car, it zooms in on her face (close-up shot), allowing the audience to see her expression. The director uses facial expression (mise-en-scene) to show how grumpy Chihiro is about moving and how hesitant she is about going into the tunnel. As Chihiro and her parents are going through the forrest, there are lots of shot-reverse-shots (editing) used to show Chihiro's reactions to the statues around her. Which shows how she is both scared and in wonder of the mystery around her. Dialogue (sound) between Chihiro and her parents show how she is nervous about both starting a new life and adventuring within the abandoned forrest and tunnels.

Scene 2: Haku is sent to the boiler room to try and get a job from Kamaji, she is scared at the beginning representing young girls, but she eventually becomes amazed and in wonder of the events that are happening to her, which is an opposite to the common negative stereotypes. When Chihiro first encounters Kamaji, a high angle shot (Cinematography) is used to place Kamaji as a more powerful character showing that not only are older male characters more stereotypicly powerful, but that Chihiro is very weak around these new people. The dim lighting (mise-en-scene) is used to show the eraieness and master and wonder around the bathhouse. Shot-reverse-shots (editing) are used to show how Chihiro is focused on what is happening and despite her fear, she is trying hard to get a job and paying attention to her surroundings. The boiler room has a faint score that is used to add a sense of magic and wonder to the creatures carrying around coal.

Scene 3: Chihiro is sent to clean the stink spirit, on her own, which shows how hard-working, brave and resilient she has become compared from when she first started working at the bath house. These traits of being extremely hard-working and determined and often shared amongst stereotypical teenage girls, making Chihiro seem even braver and resilient to viewers. There are multiple wide shots of the bath house used to show the hard work that all the workers are doing. We can see the bathhouse interior quite well, which adds to the wonder of the environment. The bathhouse ((setting)mise-en-scene) looks beautiful and amazing which shows the magic of the bathhouse. The scene uses lots of long cuts to show all of the workers working together and getting inspired by Chihiro. The musical score has a fast pace adding to the hard work that the workers and Chihiro are doing.

Scene 4: After saving Haku and arriving back at the bathhouse, Chihiro must choose which of the pigs are her parents and will be set free. She succeeds and her and her family leave the bathhouse and go back to their new home. After all of the events that she has gone through, Chihiro, has completly changed into the opposite of a stereotypical young girl like she was at the beginning of the film, and is now represented as strong, brave, adventurous and determined. The "boos" from the workers show how they have now come to like Chihiro and want her to succeed at going home, showing her as becoming an inspiration icon, so their facial expressions (mise-en-scene) show anger towards Yubaba.