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My Neighbor Totoro Tonari no Totoro |
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Atria35's Review My Neighbor Totoro is perhaps *the* iconic Ghibli film, at least in Japan. I have managed to keep from seeing it until very recently, when a friend loaned me her copy of it. I think it’s a good thing, since I’m at an age where I can look at childhood with nostalgia and wonder, just like these girls explore their world with wide eyes. They’re thrilled to be able to get an old house, full of places to explore and things to do with a little bit of imagination- and as they discover, there’s a little more to it than meets the eye. Soot spirits and cat buses and Totoros live their lives around them, unseen to adults but enchanting the children with the wonders of life. At the same time, it has the subtle theme of children trying to come to terms with their mother’s illness. Both girls love their mother, and want her to come home- dealing with it is hard. Mei has a hard time having any member of her family be gone from her- she can’t even stay at a neighbor’s house for a full school day without needing to see her sister. Her sister is just as panicked and worried about their mother, and when the movie takes a serious turn, things become more complicated when Mei decides to go on her own to try and make their mom better. Like in most Ghibli films, there’s an environmentalist theme that runs through it, justified in this case because wild and abandoned places hold a fascination for children, that there might be something hiding in the next tree or living in an attic. Being out in the forest provides a wonderfu backdrop for a story where most anything can happen. One of the most fascinating scenes is when the girls wait for acorns they planted to grow, and Totoro appears one night to help them out; the strength of their hopes and a little touch of ‘magic’ makes them sprout, and brings about a ision of what it would look like if allowed to grow, and grow, and grow! The scene is entrancing in both its simplicity and its power. Granny also teaches the girls that the home-grown vegetables are good for you and make you healthy… so when Mei decides to visit her mom, it’s an ear of corn that she grasps with all her heart. Totoro also makes an enchanting playfellow for the children, with him opening their eyes to amazing things, and they in turn showing him interesting things from their own world. An incident with an umbrella turns into a meeting with a cat-bus and the sight of a forest sprouting in a night, and all ends with music being played in the branches of an old and venerable tree. The friendship that grows between the three is adorable, and Mei’s disappearance brings out how friends help each other in their times of need! The sheer amount of joy Totoro has when helping Mei’s sister is astounding. It’s a reminder that friends should love to help each other, and that sort of thing is what friends are for. Everything about this film brings about ideas and ideals of friendship and imagination, while still dealing tactfully with a subject that can make children’s lives harder – and even with that, these kids still manage to find joy in their everyday lives. Nudity/Sexual Content- Depending on the release you see, there is the chance of seeing some toddler butt as the girls take a bath with their father. It's one scene, and obviously non-sexual. Theological Themes- The girls are interacting with various fantasy creatures- mainly made-up by Miyazaki. The Totoro is apparently somewhat of a forest spirit, there's a cat bus spirit, and they see soot gremlins at one point. Most of the story revolves around them interacting with these beings. |
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| Added: March, 2012 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
