- Duck Soup
Sisters Satsuki and Mei love each other; as affectionate playmates, they grow under their scholarly father’s calm and accepting hand. He doesn’t dismiss their play, nor does he inflate it in the artificial way that adults do; he simply acknowledges their wonder, without rationalizations. The one shadow in this world awash with sunshine is that their mother can’t be with them yet. But Satsuki and Mei are growing up at a time when neighbors still come by to welcome newcomers and lend a hand, and the neighborhood grandmother is everyone’s grandma.
At its most lyrical, My Neighbor Totoro shows life as it floats, free and easy, in a stream of happiness. When a sorrow arises, it isn’t out of the blue; it’s an undercurrent running through the highest and lowest undulations of life. It can be answered by the staring, unblinking eyes of the largest and sleepiest of forest spirits. Mei takes to Totoro almost immediately, as a lark knows the morning. Satsuki is thankful for his companionship when she struggles to bear up as the big sister. At the darkest moment, a lithe and grinning cat can transport the frightened children to the tree nearest their longed-for mother. I think that is one of the messages in the after-scenes that accompany the credits: Totoro has magic because Father does finally come home on the last evening bus, and Mother really did just have a cold, and returns to shower Satsuki and Mei with her graces of fellowship and fun. It’s when Father and Mother fail – something as inevitable as death, really – that children develop the quiet and resolved endurance and effort which so enrich the world. But that’s another story, for a later time.
Three obligatory comments:
First, the animation. Satsuki and Mei explore every corner and crevice of their new home; they walk, march, run, and crawl on all fours through sunny rice patches and shaded forests. It’s as if nature itself is infused with a natural joy that never reproaches the children’s fun. Which, of course, it is; and his name is Totoro.
Second the music. I can’t remember the last time I watched an anime where the music itself was a character; when Satsuki, Mei and Totoro play together in that wonderful scene, the theme is heard in a full-throated orchestral fragment, as if it were “the overflowing of brim-ful gladness.” Feeling lethargic or blue? The opening theme (“Totoro, go, go, go! Energetic! I like walking most”) serves as an animated companion.
Third, the voice characterizations. The dubbed version with the Fanning sisters sounds interesting. In reality, the universal themes and expressive and thoughtful character designs of My Neighbor Totoro speak for themselves. When the wind beats against the roof, bangs the pots and rattles the doors, the family’s boisterous belly-laughs fill more than the animation – it rolls over into the three dimensional world and straight into the heart.
Grade: A
