My Neighbor Totoro

Of all of Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli productions, this one feels made with the youngest audience in mind.  That's not to imply that on another level, it isn't perfectly suited for adults.  My neighbor Totoro is a very realistic (though fantastic) portrayal of 1950's country life in Japan and is the story of sisters Satsuki and Mei voiced by real life sisters Dakota and Elle Fanning.  As a side note, this recent re-dubbing seems to be the only real complaint people have against this film, calling it all sorts of horrible.  If you have seen the original, it may bother you, but I think this is mostly a case of people having an attachment to what they heard first since I didn't find anything wrong with their performance.

Satsuki and Mei have just moved into a new house with their father (Timothy Daly) in the country in order to closer to their long hospital bound mother (Lea Salonga).  They find themselves in a fixer-upper that caretaker Granny (Pat Carroll) reveals to be haunted.  The girls soon find themselves meeting the wood spirits that haunt the house, including the giant troll creature, Totoro, who they befriend in an odd way.

Unlike most of Miyazaki's films, My Neighbor Totoro does not have much of a straight forward plot or even any underlying theme.  It is a peek into the life of these children and it is pure magic.  When I say pure, I use it to mean both complete as well as innocent.  Not even Where the Wild Things Are captures a child's mind quite this well.  The thing that most struck me about this movie was the ambiguity.  Miyazaki is known for this fantastic magical elements in a strange world, but they are always real.  I saw nothing in this film that could not be interpreted as being in the girls' imagination.  Some scenes were a bit more of a stretch than others, but still all have that flavor of young imagination.  It's this feeling that really brings out the magic, as ironic as that sounds.

Miyazaki's talent for treating animated characters as real actors shines here.  His attention to detail really brings the whole thing to life in a way that is not often duplicated.  This is a dazzling film that is one of the best family films I have ever seen, despite it's simplicity, or perhaps because of it.  All I know is that I really want to ride on a Catbus.

***** (5/5 stars)