My Neighbor Totoro

What I love about Hayao Miyazaki's films is the realistic depth of their characters. My Neighbor Totoro follows the story of two sisters, 10 and 4, who move with their father to the Japanese country side to be closer to their hospitalized mother. The movie is about the emotions of childhood and it captures them perfectly. The girls play and do chores in their yard and eventually meet Totoro, a forest spirit who lives in the woods next to their home. And though there are a number of animal spirits in Totoro, what I love about this film is its realism.

An old woman explains to the girls that their house and the woods near it are inhabited by spirits that only children can see. After that it is never really stated whether Totoro and his friends are real or just figments of the girls' imaginations. Totoro just sort of represents childhood, and Miyazaki has captured childhood perfectly. The girls run and scream and explore their home. They become nervous and happy and sad the way children do, and every emotion seems genuine. Nothing is cheesy or melodramatic.

The conflict of the film begins when the hospital sends a telegram stating that their mother's condition has worsened. The girls react differently, appropriate to how I would expect children at those ages to react, and I empathize with them both differently. The movie is much more dependent on the feelings of the characters rather than the happenings of its plot.

My Neighbor Totoro runs the gauntlet from adventurous joy to tear-shedding sadness, and it does it perfectly. It's full of imaginative and memorable characters, and I have nothing bad to say about it.

Ten out of Ten.