movie review - My Neighbor Totoro
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
Despite the many times I've seen this film over the years, I realized with a start today that I've never written one of my capsule reviews for one of my favorite flicks. So let's do this!
This is an animated movie that tracks what I would argue is the imaginative response of an eleven year old to what she perceives is a close call with losing her mother to an unspecified illness. The girl, her little sister, and their father are seen in the opening scene to take up residence in an old country residence. The kind with a strong cedar (or perhaps hardwood) frame and sliding walls and wooden reed floors. There's a well on the property, and flowing water separates it from the street. There's also an overgrown woodlot at the back of the property, and a when a local schoolboy is seen to be apprehensive about the place we understand that these are the various markings of a haunted property. The girls' father is swamped with work, which he does from home on some occasions but is otherwise absent. The mother is in the hospital. The stage is set.
The place needs a good cleaning and the girls get stuck into the corners of the place. Almost immediately, the little sister begins to perceive a variety of other residents around the property. These are non-threatening, ranging from dust-puffs to .. I'm going to say wood-chuck sized. Through one charming interaction after another, the little girl and then her older sister are drawn into a spirit world that may or may not be meant to be literal. It's not long before they literally stumble on a forest god of sorts, the neighbor Totoro. The tone of the thing is amazing; there's a sense of the unknown but not real danger until something from the mundane world intervenes.
The animation is endearing, the story is memorable, and whole thing hangs together perfectly. That this movie is now thirty years old just shows how the best can endure. Happily, I can report that my kids loved this as much as I did. It helps that we've visited the Ghibli museum in Tokyo and that the kids have played in a near-life-size "nekobasu" (cat bus) as featured in the movie.
A favorite. Strongly recommended.