Hey, Neighbor

Movie Notes

The Flood of '93 thrust Des Moines into the national spotlight because the city and its surrounding suburbs did not have running water from July 11 to July 22. I had just finished my first year of teaching that July, and the flood sent me running back to Rock Valley to live with my parents until someone down here turned the faucets back on.

On the weekends, my four-year-old nephew Zachary would come to Rock Valley to stay with his "Gama" and "Papa". Often I would find myself trying to find things to entertain him. During one of the hottest Saturday mornings of that summer, I took Zach to the video store to rent a family movie.

Remember when Disney used those huge, clamshell cases to make their VHS products stand out on the store shelves, and then the other companies copied them?  Well, it looked like we weren't the only ones planning to hide indoors that day. There was only one "Disney sized" movie left on the shelf.

I showed Zach the box, and he wanted no part of My Neighbor Totoro. I can't say that I blamed him, there was't anybody in the artwork that looked like they were in The Lion King, and the movie's title was a bit off, too. No wonder it hadn't been rented. But beggars can't be choosers, so the movie went home with us. 

Once we had tucked ourselves into the cool of the basement, I pressed play on the remote and distracted Zach with previews for upcoming movie titles. By the time the movie was about to start, Zach asked, "What show is this?"

"I already told you," I picked up the case to re-read the strange title, "Ummmm, it's called My Neighbor Totoro."

"Nooooo! I don't want to watch the Toto! Stop it! Stop it!" As he yelled, he arched his little body in protest.

"Okay, okay. Jeeze, calm down! We'll find something else to watch." As I rapidly slid my hands over the couch's cushions, trying to find the remote, the opening titles for Totoro came on.

By the time I found the remote, it was too late. The peppy music had sucked Zach in. He had plopped himself directly in front of the TV, and he was pointing out the animals and insects as they were popping up from the bottom of the screen. Immediately I could tell this wasn't an American movie, and the subtitles confirmed that. Thankfully, the rest of the film was dubbed into English.

The movie's plot concerns a father and his two young daughters, Satsuki and Mei, moving into a new house near a Japanese forest. The locals warn them that their new home is haunted, but the family stays. It's a good decision, as the forest is inhabited with totoros, wilderness spirits, that take the girls on magical adventures. Sounds simple enough, but it's quite different from any other cartoon I had seen.

In his book, The Great Movies 2, Roger Ebert wrote, "Here is a children's film made for the world we should live in, rather than the one we occupy. A film with no villains. No fight scenes. No evil adults. No fighting between the two kids. No scary monsters. No darkness before the dawn. A world that is benign. A world where if you meet a strange towering creature in the forest, you curl up on its tummy and have a nap." 

 My Neighbor Totoro sure impressed my nephew. Zach watched it again that afternoon, and it was the first thing he wanted to see on Sunday morning. Eventually my mom bought a copy, and Grandma spent many hours watching the film with Zach and my other nephew Josh and my niece Meghan when they were old enough.

In July of 2000, I took a trip to Japan to visit my buddy Ryan Dughman. I tried hard to find gifts I could afford to bring back to the States, and I bought a couple of Totoro dolls for Josh and Meghan. But when I showed the pair to my Mom, she asked if she could keep them for herself. Apparently the Totoro magic had also worked on her.

Okay, fast forward to Thanksgiving week 2012. A feverish Char was home sick with Dad on Monday, and home again with Mom on Tuesday. By Tuesday evening, her collection of library books and Care Bear videos weren't cutting it anymore, so I decided to play my Totoro card. I was guessing Char was old enough to at least enjoy the opening song.

Char's at the age where she says "No," before she even thinks, so I wasn't shocked when I showed her my DVD of My Neighbor Totoro, and she pushed the case away. Undeterred, I started the movie and skipped through the previews while Charlotte rolled around the floor quietly sobbing, "I don't want to watch Toro! Care Bears! Care Bears!"

I had seen this act 19 years ago, and I had faith in the totoros. Although the opening song is now sung in English, the music quickly caught Char off guard, and she got off the floor to see what was going on. Unlike Zach, she wasn't immediately smitten with the movie. It took about 90 more seconds for her to become enchanted. Like Zach, Totoro was the first thing she wanted to talk about the next morning.

I called my mom to tell her about Char's new favorite movie, and when she came to visit for Thanksgiving, Mom brought the dolls along as a gift. They were accepted:

So what makes this movie so different? For one thing, the girls' mother is sick in the hospital, but no one makes a big deal about that. The kids just take her condition as a fact of life. Letters to mom are written, and visits are scheduled when possible. As Mr. Ebert asked in his review, "...does illness exist in American animation?"

Another difference is its pace. MNT isn't a slow film, there's plenty of action, but it takes the time to slow down and let the Mei gaze into a puddle and curiously poke a finger into a cloud of tadpoles - exactly the kind of thing a child would stop to do.

To compare cartoons to music, most programs on TV today are like harsh carnival music. Totoro is closer in design to a smooth jazz tune that makes unexpected turns. MNT hits all the right notes, but just not where you expect them to be played.

For example, I sure didn't see this Cat Bus coming.

Speaking of the unexpected, there is a bath scene that's pretty jarring. There's nothing inappropriate about the girls bathing with their dad, but you'll know what I'm taking about it when you see it.

As a father of a girl, I also like that the two main protagonists are female. They don't rely on any males to help them on their journey, except their Dad, of course, and that's cool with me. But this isn't a movie targeted at a female audience, it's a movie which just happens to have female leads. 

Ebert sums it up, "It is a little sad, a little scary, a little surprising and a little informative, just like life itself."

It's also a little wonderful. Just like raising a child.

PS. Here's Roger Ebert's full review:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20011223/REVIEWS08/112230301/1023