While animated films are usually undefeated when it comes to delivering magical, impossible worlds, delivering magical, impossible worlds is just another weekday to the vibrant minds behind Studio Ghibli. Already fairly adept at creating bewitching creatures and stunning realities to rapturous applause, the animation house has always strived to make the human moments count even more than the times where your imagination is coaxed to soar above the clouds to dizzying effect and in Ghibli’s third (Second? Who’s counting?) movie, Hayao Miyazaki brought his incredible focus to focus on the simplest pleasures the mind can fathom – that of a child at play.
Of course, in doing so, Miyazaki also managed to create arguably the Studio’s most endearing character in the entirety of its storied history, the rotund, feline-looking forest spirit known as Totoro. Yet for those looking for a full-blown fantasy epic much like Miyazaki’s previous efforts, My Neighbour Totoro offers quite an alternative experience that nevertheless just as stunning.
In 1950s Japan, we meet university professor Tatsuo Kusakabe as he travels with his two young girls and all their family belongings as the move to a new house that’s located closer to the hospital where the girl’s mother, Yasuko, is recovering after a long-term illness. Rather than being sullen that they’ve moved to a new address, ten year-old Satsuki and four year-old Mei are incredibly excited by the new experience and enthusiastically (not to mention loudly) start exploring their new home.
We immediately get a sense that something magical resides in the area when the girls discover strange little soot-like spirits who have taken up residence in the dark corners of the house, but who soon skedaddle once light starts pouring into the rooms once more. Later, little Mei spots two more spirits that have more of a feline appearance and follows them into the woods where she encounters a large, burly, but ultimately sleepy forest spirit whom she names Totoro. However, after dozing in his immense (and very comfortable looking) belly, she awakens to find him gone and is unable to lead Satsuki and her father back through the hidden paths that lead to the big, cuddly cryptid.
But as the girls continue to acclimate to their new surroundings and hope that their mother will soon become well enough to join them at home, Totoro starts to make more appearances in their lives, be it while they wait for their father’s bus in the rain, or when some seeds they planted need some mystical urging to grow faster. But when the girls intercept a message saying that their mother will have to remain in hospital after a sudden illness, the immediately assume the worst. With a distraught Mei storming off and promptly getting lost, Satsuki is beside herself with worry – but if anyone is going to be able to locate the wayward child, it’s a big fuzzy forest spirit.
Despite being as beguiling and charming as anything Studio Ghibli has released before or since, trying to describe My Neighbour Totoro to someone who either hasn’t seen it, or is unfamiliar with the kind of stories the animation house tells is a remarkably difficult task. Simply put, this is a film when nothing much actually happens and even when it does, the promise of adorable forest spirits and fantastical worlds aren’t actually the engine that makes Miyazaki’s ridiculously warm movie go. Compared to the more easily quantifiable offering from the other big houses, My Neighbour Totoro is something of a headscratcher – it hasn’t the lavish, fairytale ambience of Disney, nor does it have the relentless humour or a Pixar, or the pop culture savvy of a Dreamworks. And yet if you can get onto Miyazaki’s supremely gentle wavelength, you’ll be treated to an experience like no other.
Miyazaki’s chief sights are purely on the experiences of these two children as they move to a new home and the emotions they feel as they experience it. Everything, including the presence of a giant, bear-sized cat thing that loves umbrellas, is secondary and in some instances, even something of an afterthought. There’s no real set up for the girl’s arrival; the sub-plot of their mother’s illness is kept vague; the human supporting characters have no real narrative purpose; neither Totoro, nor his forest spirit buddies are given even the remotest amount of explanation and there’s not even a hint of something as distasteful as an antagonist. In fact, if you find yourself at odds with such a simple film, you might go as far to call it boring, or worse yet considering the volume Satsuki and Mei operate, annoying. However, you’ll be hard pressed to find a film that understands a child’s way of perceiving things so accurately and it’s genuinely heartwarming to watch the two girls embrace every new experience, be it spending time with the bizarre mash-up of feline and public transport known as the Catbus, or just simply exploring their new surroundings.
Even the negative drama that creeps into the movie is underplayed. Due to the gentleness of the story, the sudden news that Yasuko is getting ill once again feels like a literal brick in the stomach and the realism that Miyazaki approaches Mei subsequent disappearance with is almost suffocating, but seeing as this is one big, unfeasibly warm hug of a movie, the fact that everything turns out fine with no ramifications whatsoever both cements Totoro’s standing as a film that boasts a unique tone.
Atmospheric beyond belief, you somehow feel the sun on your face and smell the grass despite it all just being a string of rapidly photographed drawings and a simple sequence that sees Satsuki suddenly meet Totoro out of the blue while waiting at a rain-lashed bus stop may be one of the most magical, yet utterly down to earth sequences in Ghibli history. However, such simple pleasures may escape those looking for more typical, bombastic examples of fantasy, especially since Miyazaki’s last two efforts where huge, sprawling, sci-fi epics that were obsessed with flying, and to question the benign gentleness will only confuse you more. It’s simply a film about being happy and in love with your own existence, so what does it matter if there’s no jokes, no villain, seemingly no point and the Catbus inexplicably has balls? To question Ghibli is to question the nature of simple, uncomplicated happiness and while Totoro may not have the scale and rampant imagination of a Spirited Away, or a Princess Mononoke, you’ll get just as much pleasure watching the big fuzzy title guy have a snooze and wishing you were curled up on his belly.
Magnificently counterintuitive, My Neighbour Totoro still stands as a sweetly befuddling original that furiously tugs on heart strings despite seemingly doing nothing at all. However, when it come to an animated movie that delivers all the simple enthusiasm that comes from being a child, it ends up being a surprisingly complex balm for these cynical times where being neighbourly seens to be something of a strain.
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