My Neighbor Totoro filmed in 1988 by famed animator Hayao Miyazaki, this is one of the iconic animated tales produced by his Studio Ghibli and one of my favorite movies. This cartoon embodies the main motives of Miyazaki’s work – childhood, the fidelity of friends, the dark side of the personality, and the power of fantasy. The film about Totoro needs to be analyzed to find out why it is a complex work with a lot of details.
The primary interpretive step is to limit one’s own judgment in order to avoid the realization of internal prejudices. Personally, I am a big fan of animation. My experience tells me that some anime tend to be very hard to follow due to its twisted plot, full of flashy flashes and over-the-top actions. However, this film does not have any of the above features, it is soft, restrained in pacing, and its animation is noble. The plot of the film is not only a children’s fairy tale but a folklore about a fabulous friend and a touching story, which can resonate with an adult audience. To be more specific, the scene where Mei and Satauki find Totoro and tell this exciting news to their parents, instead of convincing them that this creature is not exist, they actually start their trip to find Totoro together. That is one of the happiest moments Mei and Satauki have throughout the movie. The scene could play as a pathos as it affects audience emotion positively.
The film begins with two sisters, Mei and Satsuki, moving into a private house in the countryside with their father. Not far from it is a hospital where the mother of the girls is. The sisters accidentally find the keeper of the forest – Totoro, and not only him. In the course of the picture, they meet various fantastic creatures that help them cope with problems. For example, Totoro, who, together with the girls, performs a ritual that awakens the crops, or Catobus, who helps in the search for the heroine’s sister. The sisters in the film interact with things that cannot exist. Children are extremely realistic and detailed characters that fit seamlessly into different scenes. They scream, get lost, cry, feel ashamed over trifles, worry too much, and laugh for no reason.
In detailing his heroines and fantasy worlds, Miyazaki draws on a vast array of sources, including myths, ancient Japanese legends, history, science fiction, and fairy tales. This can be seen in the film about Totoro, which is filled with references both to the era of the samurai and to more modern culture. Miyazaki’s characteristic handwriting is that practically every frame contains aesthetic features that either hint at a phenomenon to the viewer, or are necessary to convey the atmosphere. In any case, Japanese features are expressed even through small details, such as grass or trees, characteristic of the local climate. Finally, wooden utensils, sticks, hieroglyphs and silhouettes of clouds in the sky refer to a special and unique world that is instantly recognizable.
The most interesting aspect of the film for me was the unusual relationship that develops between a girl and a creature from a mythical space. The dynamics of their relationships constitute the emotional core of the film and provide the audience with interest. Japan is shown in this way as a land of mythical creatures and fairy-tale mysteries, which is the most revealing part of the film. The strangest aspect of the film, however, was the design of the creatures themselves (HBO Max Family, 2021). Miyazaki obeyed the principle of Japanese culture and transformed it by adding a unique element of childhood.
The advantage of the picture, in addition to the visual part, which cannot be ignored, is its transience and lightness. The viewer is not loaded with any excessive action here, except for one thing that is worth mentioning later. A snapshot of the lives of two children in a village where the only connection to the plot is a hoax due to their mother’s illness, which the children miss. Towards the end, the climax of the whole story appears, which quickly turns into a drama. One of the sisters is lost – at some point it seems that she accidentally drowned. There is a conflict in the tape, it is tied to the sisters and appears when they receive a message that their mother will not be allowed to come to them for the weekend. One girl feels denial, the other feels excessive pessimism. The village has nothing to do with it, perhaps through the participation of the entire village in the search, responsiveness and cohesion are revealed in such settlements.
Totoro is a fantastic animal, fluffy and very large, but at the same time it does not pose a danger to children. The scene where the main character interacts with the sleeping Totoro proves that this creature should be perceived as a protector figure. The girl grabs his huge paw, climbs onto the fluffy chest of the animal, but he is not at all annoyed, like a kindly older relative. Totoro is clumsy, but symbolizes majesty, it causes adoration and a sense of reliability and security in the characters of the film (Napier, 2018). Indeed, Miyazaki shows through the friendship of the main character and Totoro that a person must be curious, kind, innocent, and connected with culture as with the organic fabric of life. Totoro is a creature from the forest, embodying nature, so his interaction with the girl means a search for kinship between a person and the world around them. Furthermore, from Miyazakiworld: A life in art, Napier brings us inside the Miyazaki universe and explains how Miyazaki drew inspiration from his own European experiences for many of the cinematic worlds he built, which provides an opportunity to explore and refine perspectives of Miyazaki’s movies and animations in general (Napier, 2018). This will support my argument that the creature is harmless and a protector figure.
One of the most beautiful scenes, the one in which the sisters wait in the rain at the bus stop for their father from work. They took two umbrellas, one for the eldest girl, one for her father, and the youngest sister put on a raincoat. The agonizing expectation dumps the youngest, she literally falls asleep on the go. Because of that the elder puts her on her back and continues to wait. The wait drags on, the bus arrives, but the father is not on it. In order to drive away frightening thoughts or brighten up the longing of waiting for the bus, Totoro comes to the bus stop, but he does not have an umbrella, he gets wet. This is where an extra umbrella came in handy. Totoro waits for Catobus, and his father arrives and the rain stops – the umbrella is no longer needed. The scene is deep in terms of the girls’ perceptions: waiting in the rain flows into clear weather and a long-awaited meeting. The film is suitable for viewing in the family circle, but you should not take it as a child. The experiences of children and their activities are very important, and this should be treated with respect. Watcher can notice the criticism of parents when they completely forget about their children for the sake of workaholism. Although, perhaps, this is not a criticism, but a reality with which you will have to come to terms, everyone should decide for themselves here. Be that as it may, the picture will take to the outback of rural life and give him the coziness and tranquility desired in the modern world.
Totoro is interesting to look at from a genre discussion point of view, but at the same time, the film’s involvement in the fantasy genre is even more interesting to explore from the perspective of how ambiguity is associated with the artistic depiction of shoujo characters in Miyazaki’s work. One of the most outstanding features of this portrait is that fiction allows young children to take care of their own mental state in a moment of stress and anxiety. Regardless of whether the viewer believes in a natural or supernatural explanation of what is happening, the characters have the ability to enter into contact with the other unconscious or supernatural, which is most definitely considered a sign of inner strength and mental balance. Mei and her older sister Satsuki endure troubling changes such as moving and their mother’s illness, embodying the dynamic personality traits typical of Miyazaki’s heroines. The literal and metaphorical childishness of the two girls fits perfectly into the film’s small scale and intimate atmosphere, and the first-person focus is best suited to this quasi-fairytale narrative.
One could ask questions about the additional motivations Totoro wonders why he never talks to the girl, although he understands her, it what makes two kids see Totoro, but others cannot. A more detailed analysis probably would reveal that Totoro is not just a fabulous friend but the embodiment of a divine totem, a creature that must be treated with sacred awe. To be more specific, the showing of the Totoro’s cat bus and the scene where their parents cannot see their kids. On the other hand, it could just symbolize warmth, innocence, and childishness. The entire mythology embedded in the film requires more detailed consideration.
References
HBO Max Family. (2021). My Neighbor Totoro | Mei meets Totoro (Clip) [Video]. YouTube. Web.
Napier, S. J. (2018). Miyazakiworld: A life in art. Yale University Press.