A few weeks ago, I watched the documentary The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness. During its final moments, Hayao Miyazaki calls for the director of the documentary to look outside the window at a man watering his plants. He explains how the man has no idea they are watching him and then points out another house with a rooftop, asking,
”What if you leapt onto the next rooftop, dashed over that blue and green wall, jumped up and climbed up the pipe, ran across the roof and jumped to the next. You can, in animation. If you could walk the cable, you could see the other side. When you look from above, so many things reveal themselves to you. Maybe race along the concrete wall. Suddenly, there is your humdrum town is a magical movie. Isn’t it fun to see things that way? Feels like you could go somewhere far beyond. Maybe you can.”
The magic behind every Studio Ghibli Film is how they transport us inside their world for those few hours, making everything seem possible. There are only a few movies I can name which I revisit every now and again— whether it is for comfort, to feel joy, or to just to let the day pass by. One of these movies is Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro, which transports you back to your childhood, to a time when your imagination knew no bounds.
My Neighbor Totoro is Hayao Miyazaki’s second feature with Studio Ghibli and we can see clearly how he becomes like a parent protecting his children with these characters. As his career progresses, his characters venture further and further from the bounds of his protectiveness, letting them grow as a child does. In this film, Miyazaki establishes his writing style, characters, and themes such as humanity’s relationship with nature, the use of magic, and the intergenerational relationships and friendships that become a part of his character’s journeys.
My Neighbor Totoro is a story about two sisters who move to the countryside with their father (Shigesato Itoi) in order to be closer to their hospitalized mother (Sumi Shimamoto). They quickly discover the surrounding trees are inhabited by magical spirits of the forest. It is clear from the very first moment that the sisters share a great bond as we see Mei (Chika Sakamoto) following her older sister Satsuki (Noriko Hidaka) everywhere and repeating her last spoken words with the same enthusiasm. When their father asks them to open the kitchen, the sisters find the room filled with tiny black creatures which run into hiding. When they ask their father about it, he tells them that they are dust bunnies similar to the ones Satsuki has drawn in her picture book.
Mei’s mind stays on the dust bunnies as she becomes determined to catch one. When she does, she runs as fast as she can to show it to Satsuki. But when she opens her hands, the dust bunny she captured vanishes, leaving behind only the black dust. For the rest of the day, the family shifts their stuff inside with help from Nanny (Tanie Kitabayashi), the caretaker of the house. After visiting their mother at the hospital the next day, we see how Miyazaki lets the story be an escape from reality for Mei by letting her discover two small spirits who lead her into the hollow of a large camphor tree. She falls on a larger spirit, which Mei names Totoro and falls asleep on his belly.
Returning from her school, Satsuki finds Mei asleep on the ground. Excited for them to meet Totoro, Mei is disappointed that she is unable to show him to her father and Satsuki as the road to him has disappeared. Her father doesn’t let Mei’s belief be in vain though as he comforts her by telling how lucky she is to have met with the king of the forest. Miyazaki usies Totoro’s appearance as a stand-in for himself to protect Mei and Satsuki in their times of need, like the bus stop in the rain. Totoro appears to Satsuki as she and her sister stand alone at night in heavy rain waiting for their father’s bus to arrive.
Satsuki is shown taking on her mother’s role at the household by cooking for the family, helping with laundry and most importantly protecting her sister. Miyazaki shows how Satsuki grows into her new role as an adult but every now and again he lets her back into her childhood, letting her be carefree. Satsuki is shown writing letters to her mother, telling the adventure she had with Mei and her meeting with Totoro. She also writes about the magical seeds Totoro gifted them, which prompts Totoro’s appearance with his friends in a ceremonial dance during midnight, growing the seeds into a giant tree and taking Satsuki and Mei for a ride on a magical flying top. This sequence lets Miyazaki capture the elements of fantasy, a shared beautiful escapism for the sisters, especially for Satsuki whose little hesitation before the ride showed how she has let herself be an adult underneath a child. The next morning, Miyazaki leaves both his audience and the girls to determine whether yesterday was part of a dream or reality or even both for that matter.
But the jolt of reality comes back when Satsuki receives the news from her father that her mother has to stay a few more days at the hospital because of a setback in her treatment. This is the moment where Miyazaki doesn’t bring Totoro as a distraction. Rather he lets the sisters come to terms with what they are feeling. Satsuki breaks down in tears in front of Nanny in fear of what if her mother dies? Mei, who hasn’t taken the news well, argues with Satsuki and later leaves for the hospital which results in her becoming lost. This prompts Satsuki to search for her and in her last desperate attempt pleads for Totoro’s help, which he is delighted to provide.
The fact that the exact nature of their mother’s illness is never revealed and that the Totoros are only visible to Mei and Satsuki proves that we are seeing the story through Mei’s eyes. The world of the Totoros is wondrous, charming, and magical. There is an innocence, a gentleness, and a friendliness to these creatures. The beautiful hand-drawn animation and the attention to every detail brings the forest, the Totoros, and the beautiful countryside alive. The film makes us want to climb inside that world, hop aboard the catbus, and have our own little adventure.
If you look at the rest of Miyazaki’s filmography and come back to My Neighbor Totoro, you realize how it is his most childlike, innocent, and sweet-natured movie as the rest get progressively more intense. This is seen in the exploitation of nature by humans in Princess Mononoke, a young witches’ journey towards independent life in Kiki’s Delivery Service, Chihiro finding courage in Spirited Away and with The Wind Rises he explored how a war led a man’s most beautiful creation used for humankind’s destruction.
My Neighbor Totoro is Miyazaki’s most personal film and is partially autobiographical. When Miyazaki and his brothers were children, his mother suffered from spinal tuberculosis for nine years, and spent most of her time hospitalized. Mei’s lack of awareness of the severity of what illness her mother has, her escape from reality with the imagination of Totoro might be a direct parallel to what Miyazaki must have dealt with at that time of his life.
My Neighbor Totoro is a magical masterpiece that pulls you back into its world time and time again. The film is a sweet ride back to your childhood with enchanting and friendly spirits to keep you company along the way. So let its joyfulness cheer you up as you watch the best animated movie ever made
