“The enchanted city” turns 20, Miyazaki’s masterpiece capable of creating worlds and giving souls a superior dignity

by time news

July 20, 2001. Four years after the incredible exploit of the beautiful “Princess Mononoke”, absolute box-office champion at home then ousted by James Cameron’s Titanic, the highly anticipated eighth anime film of the master (at era still relatively little known to us) Miyazaki Hayao: “The enchanted city” (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi / Spirited Away). A success with the public even higher than that of the previous film and unanimous acclaim from critics, but this time also a decidedly (and finally) global attention: in 2002 he will win theGolden Bear for Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival (the first – and so far only – ever assigned to a cartoon) and in 2003 l‘Oscar for Best Animated Film tearing up a little more than mediocre competition (“Ice Age”, “Spirit – Wild Horse” and the Disney brace consisting of “Lilo & Stitch” and “Treasure Planet”). Twenty years later, the film is confirmed as a timeless masterpiece standing out as a milestone not only in the prestigious catalog of Studio Ghibli (the production company founded by Miyazaki himself with the no less gifted but still misunderstood Takahata Isao) but also in the history of Japanese cinema. In Italy it was released in theaters only in the late spring of 2003: but it went better than China, where incredibly we had to wait until 2019 to get a release in cinemas.

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