Perhaps one of the things that sums up who we are as people is not how we adapt to change but how we deal with the fear that surrounds it.

“Spirited Away” (Disney, PG), a Japanese anime film, shows us how a young girl overcame her fears, teaching the audience about human nature.

Chihiro is a young girl on her way to her new home with her parents. Like many children who are forced to move, Chihiro is scared to become part of a new environment and saddened to leave her old one.

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When the family accidentally takes a detour, they come across a long, dark tunnel. The family finds an old deserted town at the end of the tunnel. All seems normal until Chihiro’s father smells something, leading him to discover a restaurant full of fresh-cooked food. Chihiro’s parents sit down and begin to pig out. When Chihiro warns of the rudeness of eating the food without permission, her father responds with a laugh because, after all, he has credit cards.

His answer may make sense to us, but it lends to dire consequences for Chihiro’s parents. After these changes for her parents, Chihiro is whisked away to learn that the town is not deserted. In fact, it is really a Japanese bathhouse for spirits.

“Spirited Away” is more than a film about a girl lost in a parallel dimension trying to get back home and save her parents lives in the process. The greatest thing about the film is its ability to carry so many themes without going over the top.

Through the character Okutaresama, Miyazaki makes one of the more prominent statements throughout the film. Okutaresama is dubbed a “garbage spirit,” wanting no more than to be cleaned in the bathhouse. Throughout the process, the spirit literally spews garbage and waste out of himself, even an old bicycle.

What’s the point of all this? We learn that Okutaresama is actually the spirit of the river, and all of the garbage he is spewing into the bathhouse is all of the garbage people have spewed into the river.

Then there’s No-Face. He’s the vast, dark spirit whose never-ending consumption of everything is making him bigger and bigger. The people of the bathhouse welcome No-Face despite his rude mannerisms and slob-like eating habits because he distributes never-ending amounts of gold. Once No-Face moves from eating food to eating people, they realize the foolish mistake they have made.

Could this character be Miyazaki’s way at knocking America’s ideology of global capitalism that says the more people consume, the greater opportunities that will be there for them?

The creators of “Spirited Away” are masters at bringing one man’s creative vision onto film. It’s breathtakingly gorgeous, from the glowing establishing shots to the use of dark shadowing to coincide with a character’s fear.