Auteur Research - Hayao Miyazaki

 Auteur Research - Hayao Miyazaki and Ambivalence 

One of the greatest and most memorable scenes from any of Miyazaki’s movies is definitely the train scene from his Oscar nominated title “Spirited away” (2001). There’s an element of missing information in this scene which I really find appealing, what are these weird shadow figures? Why does one of them kind of look like Chihiro our main character? Is this the train to the after life? Nothing is answered and that’s really refreshing somehow, but for all the things to love about this moment one thing stands out to me, this scene is deeply ambivalent. Everything about it gives the audience conflictive and contradictory feelings, not knowing where all these very melancholic figures are headed or what’s their purpose in the story and how we never see them again, while also taking in how beautiful everything is, from the constant moving backgrounds as we watch time progress from day to night, to the music that fits perfectly, simultaneously evolving the loneliness and the serenity of this train ride to a place we’ve never seen. But what makes this scene even more special, in this Chihiro doesn’t register the weirdness of these shadows and doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that it’s a one way ride, she just sits there with this eerie calmness to her, this scene doesn’t build Chihiro’s character or even give us a glimpse into what she’s feeling, instead the audience gets to feel something, something atmospheric. This technique of ambivalence is also used with the characters in Spirited away, Haku one of the first characters we meet, he helps out Chihiro and seems like a good character, but sometimes we are shown that he’s really shady and even dislikable, No face, a very ominous creature that creates a very uncomfortable atmosphere that was let into the bath house by Chihiro, at first seems like a gross monster of grief and destruction but later on we learn that it’s only a representation of his environment, even Yubaba the cruel old woman that runs the bath house, by the end of the movie chihiro is calling her grandma. We’re just never exactly sure how to feel about anyone, and again what’s interesting is that our main character rarely registers any of this, she never stops and questions the situation she just goes along with what she’s told to do trying to save her parents, the feelings this movie evokes are owned by the audience only. 

Miyazaki uses this technique in many of his movies, not only Spirited away, it’s also in many of his other big movies such as The Princess Mononoke, Totoro, etc. We’ve established that this very specific audience centred ambivalence is all used in a lot of Miyazaki’s filmography, but what does this technique do to these films? Why is it so interesting? By directing the questions that his movies evoke at the people who watch those movies, Miyazaki gets rid of the middleman, we’re not watching these movies to see what Chihiro thinks of the spirit world etc, we get to have, and struggle with, and get to answer those questions ourselves. By making his films so ambiguous Miyazaki does more than create characters we can relate and root for, he lets us relate to a world filled with complexities and conflicts.