Note: My Neighbor Totoro is being re-released in theaters from Dec. 7-11.
Many people might have looked at the broken-down and rotten-posted house with apprehension. After all, the building was closed up, dilapidated and covered in dust, dirt and fallen leaves.
But when 10-year-old Satsuki Kusakabe and her 4-year-old sister, Mei, approached the weathered countryside home, they don’t see it as troubling in the least. It’s an adventure! And when their dad pushes back the wall panels and throws open the windows of their new home with a hearty cheer, “I’ve always wanted to live in a haunted house, ever since I was a little boy!” the girls are sold.
Besides, with their mom laid up sick in the nearby hospital, being close by means the girls can visit her much more often. In fact, on their first visit, even Mom chucklingly declares that she’s looking forward to getting better soon so she can come home and meet some ghosts.
That’s not to say that everything is perfect about their new place, however. At least from Mei’s perspective. For one thing, the youngest sister is a little worried about Mom. She would never say anything out loud and be thought of as a baby, but she worries.
And there’s another problem: Now that they’re settled in, Satsuki is heading back to school. And Mei is left to run around the big yards all by herself. I mean, Dad is there working at his desk in his professorly way, but Mei is alone. And alone is … not fun.
That’s when Mei spots a small trail of acorns and a little, ghost-like figure that’s accidently dropping them from a hole in a hoisted sack.
Mei is quite surprised to see something like that shuffling about: a little, round, squirrel-bear sort of thing. So she follows it into a nearby hedge and out into the forest.
Mei knows that she really shouldn’t crawl off too far, but following this … forest spirit? … is too enticing. Before you can say, Where am I? the little tyke finds herself quite turned around and lost.
Then, after tumbling down a small tunnel in the base of a massive tree, Mei finds another one of the critters she’s been following. Only this one is huge. And very much asleep.
Mei crawls up on the creature’s slowly rising and falling stomach and marvels at its enormous snoring mouth, it’s long twitching ears, it’s thick, thatch-like fur.
It seems that Mei the explorer has found a new forest-dwelling neighbor of theirs. This creature is strange and wonderful in equal measure. And just before little Mei drifts off to sleep on this beasty’s large, warm, swaying tummy, she thinks:
What an interesting place we’ve found ourselves in.
At the core of this story sits the love of the Kusakabe family. Dad does his best to stay positive and to help his girls navigate the emotional difficulties of Mom’s illness. Mom embraces and comforts her girls. And, out of their earshot, she declares that she will “spoil them rotten” when she gets home. As a whole, the Kusakabe family is warm, loving and united.
And the fact is, the neighbors who live near the Kusakabe’s are equally kind and giving to people around them. When someone goes missing, the whole community reaches out selflessly in search of that individual. They publicly rejoice together when that person is found.
Kanta, a quiet neighbor boy, gives his umbrella to Satsuki during a rainstorm and runs home in the rain. She later acknowledges his kind action. An elderly neighbor eats lunch with Mei and Satsuki and talks to them about the health benefits of home-grown vegetables.
[Note: Spoilers are contained in this section.]
Whether or not Dad truly believes in the spirits he claims are around them—the soot gremlins that hide in dirty corners and forest spirits that dwell in woodsy greenery—he nonetheless takes time to assuage his daughter’s apprehensions playfully and smilingly.
Dad leads the girls in “properly greeting” the forest spirits after Mei returns with her outlandish story of a huge creature in the woods, for example. And he suggests that their family laughter will send any scary things in their old house away. (And indeed, we see “soot gremlins” scurry away as Dad and the girls play and giggle together.)
Totoro, the large forest creature, and the other forest entities are invisible to everyone except for Satsuki and Mei. And though these creatures don’t seek out the girls, they do show up when the girls ask for help. In one case, they turn up to help planted acorns grow into a massive tree. (Though the girls wake the next morning to realize that the magical happenings were, at least partially, a dream.)
Later in the story, when someone goes missing, several people pray for guidance and help to find them. And the invisible-to-adults Totoro and his friends become part of that answered prayer. A large cat/bus with twelve furry legs appears to help in the rescue, for instance.
There’s nothing sexual in the mix, but a 10-year-old neighbor boy named Kanta is obviously quite smitten with Satsuki.
Both Dad and Mom sit in a small bathing tub with their two girls on two separate occasions. (It’s obvious that all of the individuals are bathing, but the placement of the kids keeps everyone covered. And there’s nothing suggestive about either of the scenes.)
At first, the very size of Totoro can seem threatening. He has a huge body and a large toothy mouth. But we come to see that the creature poses no harm to anyone. In fact, his large presence has a calming effect on the girls.
Later, when a young child goes missing, the locals find a sandal in a nearby pond and worry the child may have drowned. (But no one is hurt.) There is, however, the ever-present specter of Mom’s undefined illness that young watchers may find disturbing. (But, in the end, Mom is able to return home with her girls.)
A mom calls her son a “fool.”
None.
When the girls get an unexpected telegram from the hospital while dad is off teaching, they leap to the worst conclusion. “What will we do if she dies?” Satsuki worries aloud to a kind, elderly neighbor. “Maybe she’s dead already.”
Mei wanders off on a personal mission to help her mom and gets lost.
My Neighbor Totoro is one of the most endearing films from the Studio Ghibli animated stable. It’s definitely quirky, but it’s also colorful and sweet—a kids’ movie that’s free from dark, deceptive villains, terrible adults and problematic children. Instead, we get a simple and sweet story about kids who love their parents more than anything. And parents who love doubly well when one of them falls sick.
Yes, this flick is birthed from a Japanese culture that accepts that there are natural spirits all around us: In the trees, in the rocks, in the dark and dirty corners of a room that needs cleaning. And that may well be the biggest sticking point for some parents.
But the apparitional beasties here are the sort that only kids can see. They can easily be thought of as simply the stuff of imagination. And for that matter, the big-as-a-Buick forest spirit that young Mei dubs “Totoro” is a helpful entity.
He’s the sort who shows up in all his largeness when there’s trouble, or who lets you doze on his oversized tummy if you catch him napping in the woods. He and his cohorts aren’t exactly snuggly, but they’re far from scary or threatening. They’re actually just what Mei and big sister Satsuki need to help calm their feelings of fear.
In fact, it’s that comforting and calming side of the ethereal Totoro’s nature that invites …interpretations. A creative parent might, for example, even find biblical parallels in the creature’s actions. But no matter how you see the titular character, his movie reminds us of the ability of family to love and comfort in both good and bad times.
That’s a lovely message from a lovely film.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
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