cleaning in studio ghibli films
I hate cleaning my room, but when I feel stressed out and like my to-do list is spiralling out of control cleaning my room is what makes me feel better. There is great satisfaction in seeing your room go from chaotic mess to something resembling order, christened with the sweet lie that you will maintain its new cleanily state from this moment on. But do you know what's even better? Watching other people clean, whether it's Marie Kondo or painting restoration videos on YouTube. But the absolute pinnacle of cleaning scenes can be found in the idealised world of Studio Ghibli.
There are so many cleaning montages throughout their films there's even a small Reddit thread dedicated to them. So I present here for your consideration a few of my favourites:
Kiki's Delivery Service
Kiki is a young witch flying out on her own for the first time in a new city. She lands a job as a delivery girl, working out of a bakery complete with a simple room above the shop for her and her cat Jiji. The room when Kiki arrives is covered in old flour and cobwebs and Kiki sets about cleaning it with a joyful enthusiasm that reminds me of my room at university and finally feeling like a grown-up with my own space that I was solely responsible for (if only this feeling lasted...) Kiki is the embodiment of pure enthusiasm and sets about cleaning with the same attitude, hiking up her dress and brushing the floor until it shines. Go Kiki!
Cleaning satisfaction: 9/10
From Up on Poppy Hill
From Up on Poppy Hill is a more realistic film and as such features one of the more true to life portrayals of a cleaning montage. A side plot of the story involves a school clubhouse that is under threat of being demolished (if memory serves it's mostly the male students that use it and they have let it get into a right state). The girls rock up with their cleaning gear and set the lads to work and between them all they get the place looking spick and span. I just love the sincere camaraderie of it, the school spirit and teamwork it involves. The gleam of the bannisters and floorboards after the dust and dirt have been chased away. This film is otherwise quite serious and tender and the cleaning montage gives some breathing space for these characters to interact and joke with one another.
Cleaning satisfaction: 9/10
Spirited Away
A vital cleaning scene. Chihiro, a human forced to work in a bathhouse for gods and spirits is tasked with cleaning a disgusting "Stink Spirit" made of mud and rubbish. But Chihiro's bravery and determination to her cleaning duties ultimately reveals that this is, in fact, a river god who has been trapped by mud and human waste. It's a neat piece of commentary on human consumerism and the damage humanity does to the natural environment (another recurring theme in Ghibli films) as well as showing the great courage Chihiro has. She's a stubborn girl and I respect that. It also features an extremely satisfying section where Chihiro wraps a rope around a bike handle stuck in the middle of the mud and yanks it free, causing a cascade of muck and mire that releases the trapped spirit. If you're one of those people that watches pimple squeezing videos (I'm not linking to it, if you know, you know), well this scene is kinda like that.
Cleaning satisfaction: 11/10
Howl's Moving Castle
Howl, from Howl's Moving Castle, is most definitely chaotic neutral. He is also a wizard and a mess. But luckily he has Sophie, (changed by the Wicked Witch of the West into the guise of an old lady) to sort him out. Or rather Sophie gets fed up one day with Howl's mood-swings and the fact that she can't cook properly and cleans the castle from top to bottom. Sophie starts out the film as a shy character, unable to speak her mind or know what she wants. This cleaning scene works to show how much Sophie has already changed, and how freed she is by thinking of herself as an old lady. She is no longer afraid of Howl who eats the hearts of beautiful women (kinda) and sets about making her life a bit better and a bit brighter. My fav bit it when Turnip Head (a Prince who's been turned into a scarecrow with a Turnip head, duhhhh) hops out of the castle to help dry the washing. What a good lad.
Cleaning satisfaction: 9/10
Cleaning is a narrative we can all appreciate, it is a reversion of entropy, a reordering of nature's tending towards chaos. I'm willfully ignoring the social-political commentary here (e.g. who is doing the cleaning/work) because I want to read cleaning as a way of reclaiming space and autonomy: Kiki is making a life for herself, Sophie and Chihiro are proving they are brave and hardworking. Cleaning in these moments is character. Not that I want to romanticise it, because cleaning IRL is dull and laborious and prevents you from doing from more interesting things... BUT in the idealised world of Studio Ghibli, it is a way of reclaiming a narrative for yourself or at least a breather between stories. It is a process of washing away the old and making way for the new.
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