Miyazaki Season: My Neighbour Totoro (Dir Hayao Miyazaki, 1h 26m, 1988)

Studio Ghibli and the huge furry form of Totoro, a beneficent forest spirit who stars in Ghibli's second film, My Neighbour Totoro, are undeniably entwined. From My Neighbour Totoro onwards, the creature appears, gazing off into the distance, a second, smaller Totoro perched on his head on Ghibli's logo. He is by far their most famous single character, and, for the otherwise uncommercial minded Ghibli and Miyazaki, his wide, charming smile and cat like features festoon myriad products, from plushies to bento (lunch) boxes, to notebooks, figures, handkerchiefs, notebooks, tissue-holders, bowls, lamps, and lighters. He's even now the star of a Royal Shakespeare Company play that sold out in hours. He is undeniably Ghibli's mascot (if one could imagine Ghibli needing something so base), and its superstar, as instantly recognisable and iconic as Mickey Mouse is for Disney.

Like Mickey, though, Totoro only became an icon because of his film, and My Neighbour Totoro is Ghibli building on their already considerable success of Castle in the Sky (1986), to create a film that, in its depiction of two girls, Satsuki (Noriko Hidaka/Dakota Fanning), Mei (Chika Sakamoto/Elle Fanning), and their father moving to the countryside to be near their ill mother, and the mysterious world of spirits and outlandish creatures, from Totoro to the mischievous sootsprites to the strange and charming Catbus, that they find there, as well as their more grounded adventures and fears about their mother's illness, may be not only one of the best films the studio has ever made, but one of the best childrens' films ever made.

By 1987, Ghibli, and Miyazaki were flying high-Castle in the Sky was the highest grossing anime film of the year, beating out such fare as cinematic outings for anime stalwarts such as Fist of the North Star and Urusei Yatsura, and even Doraemon-Miyazaki's gamble had paid off, and his studio had, as promised, blown the cobwebs out of the animation industry, even if it would take a few years to see the true effect. What Miyazaki, and Takahata had next was ambitious for a studio with a single film under its belt-they weren't going to make one film, but two. The senior member of this double-bill would be Grave of the Fireflies, based upon the 1967 autobiographical short story by Akiyuki Nosaka, and remains a hard hitting, often stark, and moving piece of cinema. Alongside Barefoot Gen (1983, 1986) and Black Rain (1989) it is undoubtedly the best Japanese film, period, about Japan in the Second World War, and alongside When the Wind Blows (also 1986) as one of the most vehemently anti-war films in animation.

It also, presented as a double-bill with Totoro, not only almost broke the studio with the effort of producing two films, but, due to the loose nature in which the double-bill was presented, either led to empty cinemas after the screenings of Totoro, or audiences staying away entirely where Grave of the Fireflies preceded. Totoro, for its part, originated in Miyazaki's work as a journeyman animator on the seminal 1970s series, 3000 Miles in Search of a Mother, with a simple idea-a girl-quickly becoming two girls, exploring the rural countryside around them, and meeting strange creatures-Mei, the film's arguable protagonist, was based on Miyazaki's niece, whilst Totoro himself, designed by Kazuo Oga, is a perfect extension of this quieter rural environment, part god, part embodiment of the area, and of the film's ethos itself. 

Depicting the adventure of Satsuki and Mei and their father (Shigesato Itoi/Tim Daly) as they arrive in the Japanese countryside, close to where their mother is recuperating, so the family settle into their house, and begin unpacking. Their peace, at least for the children is short lived for the first of a series of visitations by spirits soon begins-Totoro is a film heavily influenced by Japanese animism (where places, plants and other naturally occurring phenomena, as well as objects) as having life, Japanese Shintoism, and Miyazaki's more typically environmentalist perspective. Nowhere is this better seen in than in the meticulous detail of the film's landscapes, elements as fine as the cinematic quality of two areas of Japan's soil considered and debated. leading to Toshio Suzuki, now practically Miyazaki's right hand man dubbing the beautifully evocative art-style as "nature painted by translucent colours"-certainly, whilst none of Ghibli's other films have ever shirked on their depiction of the natural world, in Totoro, there is a nigh flawless encapsulation of a specific era, area, and even time of year in the film's details.

All seems to be a rural idyll for the two children, only for Mei to find the largely beneficent, if numerous house spirits (susuwatari, a fictional type of spirit created by Miyazaki, which would reappear in 2001's Spirited Away), inhabiting the upper storey of the previously uninhibited house. As the family settle in, so their father, and the local owner of the house, Granny (Tanie Kitabayshi/Pat Carroll), explains that the house, due to its age, and the area in general is rife with spirits, who we last see retreating from the house after our young heroines encourage them to leave, and the family settle into the house. More encounters with the spirits of the area are to come, and with them, a strengthening of the bonds between the sisters.

Soon, exploring the nearby fields next to the family's house, whilst Satsuki attends school, Mei comes face to face with two of the Totoros, in a sequence that, with childlike delight, unfurls itself, from initial discovery, as the small white creature becomes briefly visible, and drops acorns as Mei gives chase, to the comedic sequence in which the two smaller Totoros sneak past in the background, pantomime-esque, only for Mei to give chase, and find herself falling down a hole onto Totoro himself, and it is with the introduction to the titular spirit, that the film/s narrative, smaller stakes than other Ghibli films, but given as much emotional pathos, truly begins. Totoro, for his part, is at once familiar, and gentle, barely roused from his slumber enough to curiously peer at the small girl that has arrived in his forest clearing, and who has clambered up his belly to investigate, but also colossal, a furred goliath that seems otherworldly, understanding human speech, and growling back "To-to-ro" when prompted for his name, with Mei soon waking from her nap only to find herself outside the forest.

Unable to find her way back into Totoro's forest, and disbelieved by Satsuki, sulks, whilst Satsuki becomes concerned by her mother's condition; all of this once again changes when, waiting at their local bus-stop in the rain, for their father to return from Tokyo where he teaches as a professor, the two girls find that they are no longer alone. Once again, through wordless animation, Totoro is revealled, and Satsuki takes pity on him in the pouring rain, giving him their father's spare umbrella. The next sequence is a masterclass in anime character animation, his playful nature revealled in this scene, finding joy in being given an umbrella, and causing raindrops to fall from the surrounding trees as Totoro grins down at our heroines, before giving way to the arrival of the equally outlandish Catbus, half feline, half transport that whisks Totoro away, giving the girls a sack of acorns.

Another charming sequence follows, with the girls seemingly unable to grow the seeds in the soil, as Totoro later returns to help them plant and grow into colossal trees, only compounding his role as a nature deity; it is here in particular that Joe Hisashi's score, now given the full sweep of an orchestra, from the film's charming poppy opening to dramatic moments in which Hisashi's synths sit pride of place in the centre of the score, comes to the fore. However, it is with the film's finale that begins a few moments after, as the two sisters fear the worst about their mother, and that her illness spells disaster for the family. Mei goes missing, seemingly setting off to walk the massive distance between the village and the hospital, whilst Satsuki's search becomes more and more desperate until Totoro reappears on the scene, and brings the sisters back together and the film to a satisfying ending.

Totoro, if nothing else, shows Miyazaki as master director-whilst the film's stakes are lower, its world quieter and gentler, and its outlandish creatures charming and ultimately benevolent, and largely unthreatening, Miyazaki still manages to give his film peril and brevity, and genuinely makes fear for both Mei, when she disappears, and for the children's mother. Moreover, whilst Totoro never made as much at the box office at the previous two films, it also captures Miyazaki as canny directors, the film making back several times its box office in a never-ending tide of Totoro-branded items. But this is to ignore the charm, the gentleness of Totoro as a piece of cinema, a quiet, but beautiful adventure into the world of spirits that gave Studio Ghibli its icon, and cemented Ghibli as one of anime's great creative forces.

Rating: Must See

Next week, we complete the first half of Hayao Miyazaki season with arguably his sweetest film of the 1980s, as teen witch Kiki starts a new life, and comes of age, in a seaside town, in Kiki's Delivery Service

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