My Neighbor Totoro
{4/5} “Trees and people used to be good friends.”
My Neighbor Totoro, released in 1988
This is one of Hayao Miyazaki’s older anime movies. I’ve seen several of his other movies — my favourite is Spirited Away. In this one a family moves to a new house in the country. The father works at a university and the mother hasn’t joined them yet because she’s in the hospital. The girls, Satsuki and Mei, discover some forest spirits including a big one that calls himself Totoro.
I liked the characters a lot. Mei, a 4-year-old, and Satsuki, a 10-year-old, are both caring and persistent. The father seems to believe in the forest spirits even though he doesn’t see them. Totoro himself is quite amusing. And who wouldn’t want to ride on a cat bus?
The story takes place in 1958. That explains why they don’t have a phone (or a TV or a computer).
Some movies you might watch with your kids would be annoying — but this isn’t one of them. You’ll enjoy it yourself.
The animation is beautiful, as always. And as always with a foreign language film, I watched the subtitled version.
March 6th, 2012 at 11:15 am
This is really one of the best movies for little kids that I’ve ever encountered… Seen it myself lots of times too!