Two Sisters Find Friendship in an Arcadian Wonderland in My Neighbor Totoro

Last year, I watched Ponyo, acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Hiyao Miyazaki’s latest feature, a take on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. I found it strange but charming and looked forward to familiarizing myself with more of the films helmed by this man I’ve so often heard praised as a giant in the realm of fantastical animated movies. Just recently, I went further back in his catalog with My Neighbor Totoro, originally released in the 1980s, though I watched the 2005 version released by Disney and dubbed by American actors, including sisters Dakota and Elle Fanning as movie sisters Satsuki and Mei Kusakabe.

Satsuki (Dakota) and Mei (Elle) have just moved into a ramshackle house out in the country with their father (Tim Daly), a professor who is kind and fun-loving but rather absorbed with his work. The purpose of the relocation is to be closer to the girls’ ailing mother (Lea Salonga), who resides in a nearby hospital. It’s obvious from the start that this is a close-knit family, and the children and their dad take genuine delight in exploring the house and surrounding wilderness together.

While Satsuki is strikingly mature for her age, she is almost as prone to giddy exhibitions of glee as her hyperactive little sister. Both of them absolutely love their new playground, and the notion that their home and the surrounding forest might be haunted intrigues them much more than it frightens them. They have the proper spirit for such a place, and soon their appreciation will be rewarded as the entities populating the forest reveal themselves.

The animation is breathtakingly gorgeous. Its idyllic countryside setting surrounded by thick stands of trees and shallow ponds looks so lifelike and appealing that I spent the whole movie wishing I could step into it. The girls’ exuberance is entirely understandable. What kid wouldn’t want to live in a place like that? The beauty of some scenes, such as the sequence in which the sisters and their dad spend the day thoroughly exploring their idyllic surroundings and the moment when the duo get caught in a torrential downpour, is enough to recommend the movie even if it weren’t attached to a charming story.

Oh, but it is. Satsuki and Mei are absolutely lovable in their childlike wonder and devotion to each other. Mei does get rather exhausting at times simply because her energy is so boundless and her lung capacity matches it, but this contributes to some of the sweetest moments involving Totoro (Frank Welker), the enormous gray creature she finds asleep in the woods one day. Drowsy Totoro, so named by Mei after the noises he makes upon seeing her for the first time, has a gentle ursine quality to him. He has a ferocious roar, but mostly he just seems like an overstuffed teddy bear. At first, when Mei relates her account of their meeting, Satsuki thinks her imagination is running away with her. However, she soon begins to hope that she might meet Totoro for herself.

This movie features several fantastical beings, but the title character is the most engaging. While he does not speak in any intelligible tongue, the girls nonetheless forge a tentative friendship with him, and he allows them glimpses into his world in mystical moments that remind me of the wintry flight of fancy taken by the boy at heart of the silent film The Snowman. Their interactions are tender, funny, magical and sometimes just a bit frightening. This is a powerful entity, but his intentions are not malicious. This, then, is a simple story of friendship and respect as the girls overcome apprehensions to reach out to Totoro and he repays the favor.

Visually, the calm, lush countryside of this movie appeals to me more than the roiling seascape of Ponyo, and when the spirits of the house and forest are absent, the movie has a purely natural look about it, whereas Ponyo always seems a bit surrealistic. The fact that only the sisters can see the mysterious beings living around them almost begs the question of whether they are even there or if this place is just a fertile breeding ground for childhood fantasies. However, enough tangible evidence of their presence exists that I would come down on the side of their being real. They look quite as strange as the sea creatures in Ponyo, but there is beauty in the eccentricity, whether they’re gasping over the tiny dust balls that scurry out of the way when they enter a room or marveling at the enormous flying bus-shaped cat that serves as a shuttle to the spirits. Through it all, a sense of innocent fun prevails, particularly when Joe Hisaishi’s cheerful score, reminiscent of a mid-century program like Leave It to Beaver, kicks in.

My Neighbor Totoro is a feast for the eyes, a treat for the ears and a joy for the child in all of us. Everybody should be so lucky as to have a neighbor like Totoro.