Mirrored Myths

I was listening to a film review podcast the other day. They were discussing a film I’ve watched probably at least a dozen times: Spirited Away.^[1]

I love that film. It was my introduction to Japanese animation. I saw it in the theatre when it was released in Canada in 2001 and bought a copy when it came out on DVD. When we went to Japan in 2025 we visited Ghibli Park just outside of Nagoya and my single souvenir from that place was a copy of the Japanese-language version of manga book of Spirited Away.

The film reviewers had just watched it and were discussing (as film podcasters are wont to do) the themes but their interpretation was miles off from what I got from the film.

What they thought versus what I thought was neither here nor there: that’s not the point.

Rather, it was a reminder that good art—and anyone who says Spirited Away is anything other than good art I will fight you on that—reflects ourselves back at us.

Their interpretation was so different from mine because they valued different things in themselves, and saw the trials and lessons of the protagonist through the lens of their own personal value system.  Good art is open to a million interpretations, and likely anyone who watches Spirited Away—or looked upon a brilliant oil painting, listened to a wonderful piece of music, or read a well-written novel—would see something important of themselves reflected back.

They were not wrong about how they saw the film, but rather went through something of a transparent psychological analysis in telling their listeners what they saw in the mirror of the film.

We often tell stories to the world about ourselves and about who we think we are as we face outwards, but sometimes we can’t escape from the reflections.