My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

I'm still pretty new to anime. I grew up with Star Blazers, but didn't even realize it was Japanese at the time. I just recognized that it was a highly unusual style, and was surprised later in life to see other things that looked like it. Somehow anime never got a hold on me, even though I loved some western cartoons that were clearly influenced by it (The Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack remain among my all-time favorite shows). I just never really exposed myself to it.
In 2012 I decided to rectify this, and the obvious place to start was watching Akira. I respected it very much as a work of art, even enjoyed it, but it didn't really connect with me. I followed that up with a couple of well-regarded television shows that I didn't really like at all, and eventually decided that anime wasn't for me. I delayed the project, figuring I'd eventually return to it, but I'd lost some enthusiasm.
But there was a thing in the back of my head. Ian Loring, who I've mentioned before as one of the hosts of 35mm Heroes and Dude and a Monkey, is a reviewer whose opinion I very much respect. For several years now he's talked about Hiyao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro as the first film he would ever watch with his children once he got around to having some (and his wife has just given birth to their first as I write this, so grats to them). Meanwhile, here in the States, my best friend's wife last year gave birth to their first child. Her first birthday is coming up and I was wondering what I should get her for the occasion, and thought I'd check this movie out as a possible gift on Ian's recommendation. I hoped for something unusual, sweet, and perhaps a bit silly.
My Neighbor Totoro is definitely all of those things, but to a much greater degree than I expected. Bits of it are quite silly, and in fact the movie sometimes seems to be set in a completely different world from the one we live in. The whole thing is indescribably sweet, every second of it. Sometimes it's just sweet and lovely, like the scene in the rain at the bus stop. Sometimes it's sweet and painful, like Mei (the younger girl, about four years old) running off to take the corn she's picked to her mother, hoping it will save her. Sometimes it's sweet and funny, like when Satsuki (the older girl, about nine or ten) and Mei frighten away the “dust bunnies.” But it's always sweet; I watch the entire movie with a smile on my face, and often slightly misty-eyed as well. So, as to its being unusual, it's unusual mostly in that I think it might be the best children's movie I've ever seen.
First of all, it just looks amazing. The exteriors are gorgeous, as if the characters are walking through an impressionist painting. These are landscapes by Monet, or perhaps Cézanne, and you feel like Miyazaki sat and painted each individual frame with oils. Brilliant colors, hazy boundaries, and heavy shadows abound. Interiors, meanwhile, are much sharper, more in the style of mid-Disney and slightly less to my taste, but still lovely. And then the characters are drawn in a style that is very much what I expect from anime: distinctive (each character has his or her own look) and very expressive. I love the exaggerated facial expressions.
And the story is perfect, in that there sort of isn't a story. There's no plot, no antagonist, nothing to be overcome or defeated. There is no climax or denouement. There is no moral to this story. We just have these two young sisters, and their mother is very sick and the family has moved to the country to be nearer the hospital where she's staying, and they're worried about her, but they're also caught up in all the wonder of discovering their new surroundings, and it's just a few months in their lives. Their lives, though, are the way we want to remember childhood. These are the children we wish we'd been, or would like one day to have, cheerful and unquenchable and devoted, full of love and wonder and curiosity. Their father, too, is the sort of parent we'd all wish to be, wise and patient and insightful, always knowing the right thing to say.
I'm not going to get into discussing every little thing about the movie that I love, because this would end up being a 10,000 word essay, so I'll just sum it up into a few very general phrases. The characters are perfectly written, with each thought and emotion fully realized. The girls (and Kanta, the boy who has a crush on Satsuki) are in no way dumbed down, and yet are instantly recognizable as authentic children with believable reactions and motivations, rather than merely little adults. The art (as I mentioned) is flawless, and the fantasy elements fit so smoothly into the story that the viewer can totally believe in them. The movie is full of tiny things, throwaway things that could easily have been glossed over, and yet Miyazaki clearly took care to see that even these little things (Mei's dry but tear-streaked face when she comes to Satsuki's school, for instance, or Kanta riding sideways on a bike that is too large for him) were well-executed. Also, I love living in the City, but if I ever move to the country I want to live in this family's house. It's a gorgeous set.
Let me sum up like this: movies in general, and children's movies in particular, are so often simply entertaining (if they can manage even that), but Miyazaki has created a genuine work of art here. I've never seen any of his other films, but even if all the others are ordinary he's a genius, because only a genius could have created this. If you haven't seen My Neighbor Totoro you really should, but more important if you have young children you simply MUST show this to them. My decision as to my friend's daughter's birthday present is suddenly very easy, and I'll be screening more Miyazaki movies soon; I suspect that she'll be getting his movies for years to come.

BEST THING ABOUT THE FILM: Tough call, but I have to go for the Cat Bus. Actually, it's an indication of how great the movie is that I haven't really even gotten into the fantasy characters in this essay. Totoro is cool, and the dust bunnies, and the little Totoros, but I really wish I could ride on that bus.

WORST THING ABOUT THE FILM: There's only one bad thing about this movie, and it's the music over the opening and closing credits. Good heavens, that's awful (to be fair, Japanese pop music in the eighties was even worse than it was here). The score during the film itself is mostly a mix between electronic updates of traditional Japanese music and Western-style chamber music, which suits it perfectly, and while it occasionally slips into these weird synth-sax passages during action sequences, you don't notice them too much because of what you're seeing. Those opening and closing bits, though, are pretty bad, with the opening the worse of the two. But it's only the first and last moment of the film, and everything in between is brilliant, so I can bear it.

SCORE: 9/10. I have a long-standing policy, from well before I started this blog, that I don't give any movie ten stars on a first watch, or soon after. It's easy to get caught up in how much you enjoy a film and to not notice its flaws until later. So for right now I'll grade this just close to perfect. Tomorrow I'll mail it back to Netflix, and then when my tax refund comes in a couple of weeks I'll buy it and watch it again before giving it that last point, but it's hard to imagine it won't move up. Aside from the opening and closing music, I can't think of a single way in which this film could be improved.
EDIT: Yeah, totally gave it the last point. Just utterly charming. 10/10. (3/4/14)

LISTS: Favorites of the Eighties, My Top 100(ish).