My Neighbour Totoro is only the 3rd Studio Ghibli film that I’ve watched, after Spirited Away and Laputa: Castle In The Sky. The film’s slow pace and almost non existent plot that reflects its simple lifestyle in the rural japan setting makes it feel like an anomaly (or art film) compared to your typical Hollywood animated films. In fact, it’s not as emotionally powerful as Spirited Away and Laputa. Yet, there’s a good reason why this film is one of the most famous among all Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli’s work: It introduced one of the most recognizable and beloved cartoon characters in the world - the titular big fat adorable bear-cat like creature - so iconic that it becomes the logo of Studio Ghibli itself; and it is this Totoro that made the film so magical.
The minimalist plot started with university professor Tatsuo Kusakabe and his two daughters, Satsuki and Mei moving into an old house in a rural Japanese village. As they cleaned and bring the house back to good condition, Satsuki and Mei starts to encounter magical creatures around the house; at first it was magical soots that live inside the house that run away whenever the girls approach them. Then it was rabbit-like creatures called Totoro that live near their house. These creatures are only visible to Satsuko and Mei and they appear randomly into their lives as the girls settle into life in village doing simple things like going to school, walking around farms and visiting their mother in hospital.
It’s not wrong to say that despite featuring a giant adorable creature as its main attraction, almost nothing interesting happens in the film. Life-changing, dramatic plot twists and conflicts are largely absent, instead what we see is how beautifully simple life in rural japan is by observing how the girls rebuild the house, enjoy the summer in the open farm, study in school and wait for their father to arrive on the bus. When the girls told the father about the creature, despite of their invisibility to everyone but the girls, the father just show tacit acceptance of their existence without raising any ruckus or questioning the sanity of the girls. Yes, it’s that kind of film where everybody live a simple, happy life most of the time. It can be shockingly boring to audiences, especially those not familiar with Japanese culture or the works of Miyazaki, if not for two things: the trademark top notch animation quality from Miyazaki and the stellar treatment of the titular character. The Japanese farm environment in particular is lovingly rendered to life with its green rice fields and the rolling water streams. But it is the creature animation that give the film so much life and magic, especially the titular Totoro. Totoro is a huge adorable bear-cat like creature with a huge belly and rabbit ear and a face that can switch from a look of dumb innocence to devilish grin in a beat. Totoro is a mysterious creature does not appear frequently in the film and it doesn’t say a word except for a few big groans but its mystery only serves to enhance the immense specialness and magic on the rare occasions when it appears. Whenever Totoro appears, the film suddenly gains a magical life of its own, adding a sense of wonder, innocence and overload of cuteness to the existing zen-like simplicity of the film without it. There are two standout scenes in particular: one when Totoro appears to accompany the girls waiting for the bus and it received an umbrella from Satsuki and started to slowly enjoy the raindrops on the umbrella; the other is when Totoro and its 2 other smaller sibling creatures did ritual dancing with the girls around the small plot of land where the girls planted some nuts at, after which giant trees started sprouting into the sky (reflecting Miyazaki’s pet environmental themes like in Laputa). It is credit to Miyazaki’s creation and animation of Totoro as well as Joe Hisaishi’s soothing score that brings magic to Totoro’s scenes. It is these scenes that made this otherwise mundane film worth watching and the titular creature so memorable that it will likely outlast the film itself.
My Neighbor Totoro (となりのトトロ Tonari no Totoro)
Written/Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
