MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO
A film review by Robert Plamondon
Copyright 1993 Robert Plamondon
An animated feature film, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki Rated G, 1:25 running time I give it four stars out of a possible five.
MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO is a charming children's film by Japan's leading animator, Hayao Miyazaki. Set in rural Japan in the 1950s, it is a story about two little girls and their father, who move into an old farmhouse and quickly discover that it is haunted. Later, they encounter Totoro, a giant, vaguely rabbit-like magical creature who lives in a hollow in the enormous camphor tree next door.
A series of delightful adventures ensue, from magical encounters with Totoro, to run-ins with the boy next door who loses the ability to speak in the presence of girls. Real-world concerns intrude heavily at times: the girls' father bought the country house to benefit their mother, who is recovering at a nearby hospital, presumably from tuberculosis. All these elements are woven tightly together in the movie.
One unusual element of the story is how the adults react to reports of magical creatures in the neighborhood. While it's a little hard to tell whether the adults REALLY believe in them, they all take reports of Totoros and Soot Sprites in perfect stride. Not once does Miyazaki trot out the hoary children's literature chestnut of "the adults think I'm a liar, so I'm going to have to save the world by myself." This accepting attitude towards traditional Japanese spirit-creatures may well represent an interesting difference between our two cultures.
Originally released in Japan in 1988, MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO has been competently (but not brilliantly) dubbed into English. (Many dubbed Japanese films have such bad voice acting that the films are painful to watch. TOTORO doesn't suffer from this problem.) The lip-synch is probably better than in the original Japanese.
Unlike the ultra-expensive, all-singing, all-dancing, effects-laden, weak-script extravaganzas put out by Disney recently, the film concentrates on story, characterization, and cinematography.
Disney, for example, wanted a wonderful ballroom scene in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, and conveniently forgot that the castle was under a curse that changed its appearance to be gloomy and forbidding. Such deliberate errors, always present in recent Disney films, are conspicuously absent from Miyazaki's work. MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO hearkens back to an era of simpler, more honest Disney films, like 101 DALMATIONS.
Like 101 DALMATIONS, the animation in MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO is not as smooth or as detailed as recent Disney works, but it is a classic nonetheless.
When watching MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO in a theater, I was impressed at the way the kids in the audience were glued to the screen the entire time. Certain scenes, such as when Mei, the five-year-old girl, discovers pollywogs in a pond, brought smiles to the faces of the adults -- but shouts of excitement from the kids in the audience. Miyazaki has their number.
The wonderfully detailed characterizaton and the charming story make MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO a delight for adults as well.
-- Robert
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Robert Plamondon, robert@weitek.COM
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