My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
Try laughing. Then whatever scares you will go away.
THE SUMMARY: A father moves his two daughters to be closer to their hospitalized mother, and they discover a giant obese cat rabbit with human teeth that occasionally appears to do nothing meaningful at all. Then the movie ends without resolving any of its central premises. This one is elite in the ranks of absolute crap. It’s a story about nothing and it takes forever to tell it.
Note: because as a rule I don’t read movies, I watched the 2005 Disney English dub with Dakota and Elle Fanning.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER WILLIAM: This beloved Studio Ghibli anime is the best time a family can have in front of a screen. After moving to a new house, two young sisters discover and befriend a benevolent forest spirit who guides, comforts, entertains, and inspires them. The movie is bouncy and adorable without being saccharine and is so wonderfully whimsical it feels as though it was sifted directly from a child's imagination.
THE BEST:
Laugh at what scares you: Because it provides courage and enjoyment in the most troublesome times. It’s both a cope with and a weapon against Clown World. When you laugh at what scares you, you minimize it mentally, and you make defeating it more realistic. Likewise, laughing at the terrifying or the disturbing is often the only way to process it and recover. No matter how tough things get, never lose your ability to laugh - that is true defeat.
I appreciate this philosophy generally, but as described below, its particular presentation in this movie makes it difficult to take seriously. Or comfortably, for that matter.
But really nothing: I’m really scraping for the point above, because praising it is like admiring a quarter at the bottom of an outhouse tank. Sure, it has some value, but you’re not going to waste your time getting to it.
A glimmer of wisdom, even if creepy
THE WORST:
No moral dilemma, not funny, not clever: I try to appreciate movies of all genres, but something excellent has to be provided: a joke, a lesson, a moral dilemma - something to stimulate thought and make the presentation memorable. This movie brings nothing. Its most memorable point is that a the weird cat rabbit has people teeth. There’s nothing funny or clever in the scripting. The serious problem for the characters to solve doesn’t get solved. There’s no debate about whether certain actions taken were correct or wise or not. The only thing I thought about afterward was whether that weird cat bus had the same amount of legs in each scene. Not even drugs can make this emptiness interesting.
The central premise is almost entirely unresolved: Most frustratingly, there’s no resolution to the central premise: the hospitalization of Satsuki and Mei’s mom, Yasuko. The ending montage implies she recovers and reunites with the family, but we don’t get any actual scene of that happening, or any explanation as to whether she actually recovered or not, or even what her condition was in the first place.
If the explanation for that omission is ‘it’s not about the mom - this is a movie about children’s imaginations,’ great. So why is the mom’s storyline included at all then? Why introduce the character actually at the hospital, instead of just setting up the premise to get to imagination land and focusing there?
The movie starts and ends on the same premise, mom is in the hospital with a serious condition, without explaining or resolving any of it, and it’s infuriating. It leaves me wondering which is the focus and which is the distraction - the mom or the Totoro? Both do nothing in the end, so I guess they’re interchangeable in uselessness and bore.
Hey look, a squirrel! Now look at this weird obese cat rabbit! Oh look, the squirrel is back! That’s the Totoro story.
For the love of God, hurry up: In theory, I should be able to praise this movie for its merciful brevity. But even though it’s under 90 minutes, it feels like double that because it takes forever to get to its point: the Totoro. It’s over 30 minutes of mostly pointless setup about an old house and a weird neighbor kid to get to the Totoro, who is also painfully slow to develop to nothing at all anyway. In fact, the beast wastes tons of time literally snoring. And those snores are among the best lines in the movie.
The moral of the story is negligent parenthood is great: This dad deserves the anguish of having his daughter’s body recovered from a pond after she drowned because he never paid attention to her, but we don’t get to see that necessary plot point either. His lack of supervision for his kids is outright preposterous throughout. He’s just sitting at a desk unattentive while a mythical beast sprouts giant sequoias in a backyard instant and catapults his kids to cruising altitude. Even if that one is supposed to be some strange dream that both girls have simultaneously somehow, dad then loses track of his four-year-old who goes missing for hours, and in the meantime he’s just sitting at the hospital with his wife, totally oblivious and unconcerned about where his two kids are. At the end, Yasuko, the mom, even says ‘I could've sworn that I saw both of the girls up in the treetop.’ Quite plausible, actually, considering neither of you parents have any idea where your kids are right now and don’t appear to give a damn anyway.
The lesson, apparently, is neglect your kids and count on stranger vans to get them home. Good luck.
The ‘Joe and Ashley’ bath: One of the few times dad actually is paying attention is with his naked daughters, at least one of whom is way too old for this bathing arrangement. According to the Wikipedia plot summary, Satsuki is about ten. I’m sure some out there would vehemently disagree with me, but dads don’t bathe nude with their ten-year-olds. It’s bizarre behavior that apparently must be more appropriate only in Japanese culture and certain Delaware households. Maybe Scranton too.
Why does the cat centipede bus have nuts?: And actually, what the hell even is this thing anyway? But really - why does it have nuts?
Way to pay attention, dad
The soot sprites aren’t the scary part
Twelve legs, one tail, and two very distinct balls
THE RATING: 1/5 Wickies. So bad I sympathize with Susan because I’m defaming her by even associating her face with this garbage. Anime simps can fight me.
YOUR RATING: Vote here ⬇
NEXT WEEK: Titanic (1997)
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