My Neighbour Totoro

Dir: Hayao Miyazaki

1988

*****

Picking a favourite Ghibli film is like asking a parent of identical quadruplets which of their children is their favourite. It's almost impossible but if I was forced to choose, I would have to say Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbour Totoro wins by a whisker. I don't think I'm alone either, because when you look at Studio Ghibli's huge range of global merchandise, Totoro Soft toys seem to be the best seller. You can pretty much buy anything with either Totoro or Catbus on them and you can even buy a giant Totoro Bed which I have promised myself I will buy one day. The studio have adopted Totoro as their company logo, which pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the film and the character. It has topped so many animation polls, it's not only considered Ghibi's most popular but it is also regarded as one of the greatest animations of all time and rightfully so. It's a story of a university professor who moves with his two young daughters to the countryside to be closer to the hospital his wife is staying at after suffering with a long illness. The big empty house soon revels many mystery to the two girls who are often left to their own devises why their father works or visits the hospital. They discover a race of dust creatures (or Soot spirits) called Susuwatari. One day, the younger daughter, Mei (possibly the cutest cartoon character of all time), discovers a furry forest spirit and follows it into the woods were she discovers a similar looking but much bigger spirit and calls it Totoro, as that is the sound it makes when it sleeps. Mei falls asleep on Totoro's chest (now a memorable scene) but when her sister Satsuki finds her she is asleep on the ground. Satsuki becomes frustrated that she can't see Totoro but their father explains that forest spirits only reveal themselves when they think you are ready. A rather wonderful scene follows where the two girls wait for their fathers bus in the rain but it doesn't show up. Totoro reveals himself to Satsuki who is carrying her sleeping sister and keeps them both company, giving the girls seeds to plant. The girl wake the following day but are unsure if it had all been a dream although they find their planted seems had sprouted. The two girls worry about their mother's health and after an argument little Mei decides to walk to the hospital herself. Her disappearance causes a panic in the village and a search is called. Satsuki runs to Totoro and asks him to help with the search. Delighted to have been asked, Totoro calls his friend the Catbus (a giant Cat the shape of a bus) who takes her straight to Mei and then takes both girls on a magical journey to their mother’s hospital, where they leave corn at her bedside. Lots of different meanings have been associated with this, the real life Sayama Incident being one of the more famous ones whereby a girl went missing, close to where this film is set, and was found dead by her sister who later killed herself in grief. There is a way of thinking that suggests the two girls are actually dead and Totoro is a spirit helping them come to terms with it. It's an idea rejected by Ghibli but it's still rather nice. The fact that My Neighbour Totoro was released at the same time as Isao Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies perhaps led people into thinking Ghibli had certain darker alternative meanings but Takahata and Miyazaki are very different story tellers. The double billing of both these films together has been referred to as one of the most moving and remarkable double bills ever offered to a cinema audience in film history, which I can't help but agree with. Both films are the two Ghibli directors at their very best. My Neighbour Totoro is one of the most magical films of all time, a superb classic and one of the main reasons that everybody loves Ghibli the way they do.