Totoro & Keeping the Magic Alive
For the longest time, I had convinced myself that My Neighbor Totoro was one of the lesser Studio Ghibli movies. As someone that grew up with the films, I was quite the Ghibli snob as a kid and believed that my ranking of the films was correct and definite. I realized recently that my girlfriend had never seen My Neighbor Totoro, along with a number of other Ghibli movies, and so we've been on a binge over the last week. I recall thinking the first time I saw Totoro that it was boring, but I think my childhood self just couldn't see the simple beauty, nor the delicate nuances of the sibling dynamic present in the film, as I was busy living through them myself.
My Neighbor Totoro, Miyazaki 1988
Now, as an adult, My Neighbor Totoro is an absolutely gut-wrenching portrait of what it is like to be a sibling, to experience hardship, and to learn that magic is all around us. My Neighbor Totoro reminds us that children are more emotionally intelligent than we give them credit for. Children deal with adult topics like sickness and death all the time, and while adults may believe their children's innocence cannot intersect with those topics, for fear of losing the magic of childhood, it is often the only thing that keeps them going through it all.
I noticed strong parallels between this film and The Florida Project by Sean Baker, which is one of my favorite films of the last decade. Both films tackle the ways in which children manage to keep magic alive despite experiencing hardships such as sickness or poverty. The films even have strikingly similar scenes of the eldest child, often pulling it together to appear strong for the other children and adults, breaking down in tears for the first time in a pivotal moment to reveal how the hardship has affected them. The films were also similar in that I was broken down in tears during the credits both times.
The Florida Project, Baker 2017
Though a younger me thought Tototo was a lesser Ghibli film, I am happy to give it its flowers now. Rewatching all of these movies from my childhood with someone who has never seen them before has reminded me of how truly magical and moving they are. Seeing them with new eyes has shown me why people still dress up as the characters for Halloween or cover their houses in Ghibli decor. I get it again. I can't believe I ever forgot.