Spirited Away (2001)

Best animated feature Oscar winner from Hayao Miyazaki, the much heralded “Walt Disney of Japan”. The mythology, style (I never got into anime) and story of the film were so strange and different from anything I’d seen before, that I felt as though I was missing something through much of the picture. However there is an undeniable something there, a sense of wonder and sentiment, which transcended what for me was an unusually thick cultural barrier. Probably the most unexpected animated film I’ve seen since The Triplets of Belleville. I’m quite found of the music. 4 out of 5.