Mythology as such, where it poses no rival to Christian faith, is not necessarily problematic for Christian audiences.
Generations of Christian children have grown up reading classical mythology, and tree-spirits and river gods likewise inhabit in the Narnian fantasies of Christian author C. S. Miyazaki’s films are rife with tree-spirits, river gods and the like.īy itself, this need not be cause for concern for Christians. There are also little quirks that are left unexplained, like the social awkwardness of Kanta, the boy next door, who becomes openly agitated and tongue-tied in Mei’s presence, somewhat like the protagonist of Kiki’s Delivery Service around her young admirer Tombo.Īs elsewhere, Miyazaki’s reverence for nature is here expressed imaginatively in terms drawn from the animist tradition of Japan’s Shinto heritage. The film exhibits a number of Miyazaki’s familiar themes and motifs: young heroines, competent and understanding adults, a wise old crone responsibility, respect for elders, veneration of nature personified in enigmatic spirits. Dappled countryside, lived-in houses, tangled underbrush - this world is never less than mesmerizing, with a familiarity and strangeness at once appealing and intriguing. Like all Miyazaki films, My Neighbor Totoro creates a lush visual environment, authentic and even authoritative in its specificity and detail. It is a rare wisdom in family films that not all problems are resolved in ninety minutes, and happiness doesn’t reside in coming decisively to the “happy ending.” I can’t help thinking how much more reassuring this could conceivably be to a young child coming to the end of the film and returning to a world in which his or her own problems haven’t suddenly evaporated. In marked contrast to a typical Hollywood family film, which would end with all conflicts resolved and all plot threads tidily wrapped up, Miyazaki’s film achieves peace even as the hoped-for resolution is still in the future. In a tense third act, the girls even face the possibility that their mother may be dying, and Satsuki deals with the crisis of Mei’s disappearance.Īnd here is one facet of the film’s uniqueness: While it ends on a reassuring note, it is not the story of the mother’s eventual release from the hospital and return to her family. Over the whole film hangs the shadow of the illness of the mother, who is hospitalized (her daughters don’t exactly know why). Though the world of My Neighbor Totoro is ultimately benign, it is not Pollyanna, not without anxieties or crises, or focused only on the bright side. It is simply that for the most part rules are neither here nor there. It is not that the rules are harder to understand, like in Wonderland or Chihiro’s spirit world. The film keeps at least one foot in this world, but finds that world infused with mysterious magic and breathtaking benevolence. My Neighbor Totoro, despite a brief rabbit-hole tumble into the dreamy stillness of the Totoro realm, doesn’t leave the ordinary world behind and take Mei and Satsuki somewhere else entirely. In that very different but equally masterful film, poor Chihiro turned the wrong corner and crossed over into a world of shifting, often ominous realities, seemingly operating according to unknown and incomprehensible rules. One might say there is there is something dreamlike about the adventures (if such nearly plotless proceedings can be described as “adventures”) of young Satsuki and her kid sister Mei, who arrive with their father in a new house somewhere in the rural Japanese countryside, a stunningly idyllic landscape of rice paddies, tree-shaded footpaths, and pristine forests.īut it’s not dreamlike in the manner of Miyazaki’s much later film Spirited Away, a few overlapping elements (like the fuzzy soot sprites) notwithstanding.