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REVIEW: My Neighbor Totoro BD+DVD


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Looneygamemaster



Joined: 21 Jan 2012
Posts: 192
PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 12:19 pm Reply with quote
This is my absolute favorite Ghibli film (though I've yet to decide if it's the "best" film). It's sweet, soothing and innocently pure, but it never talks down to children--it feels instead like a snapshot of childhood. It's kind of like Winnie the Pooh.
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ailblentyn



Joined: 28 Mar 2009
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Location: body in Ohio, heart in Sydney
PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 12:27 pm Reply with quote
I've really been enjoying the Ghibli review festival. And I did enjoy reading this one for what is probably still my favourite Miyazaki film — but I feel it missed the mark a little bit. "Magical and whimsical" is true, but a film that can lead Helen McCarthy to claim "Totoro is a film about death" has more to be said about it, even if you mightn't put it quite so baldly.
(Winnie the Pooh too! The humour comes form the very relatable childish jealousies and meannesses mixed in with the affection, don't you think?)
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Angel M Cazares



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PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 12:34 pm Reply with quote
This is a perfectly enjoyable film for 5 years old children. It is a visually impressive movie, but by the 30 minute mark, I was bored. I might have had a better experience if the movie had a conflict or a well thought out story.

Bamboo wrote:
It's even more surprising to learn that Miyazaki and his team knew that it wouldn't be a success right from the get-go,

Perhaps they knew that the story in this movie was pretty hollow.
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Akane the Catgirl



Joined: 09 Oct 2013
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 12:59 pm Reply with quote
^ I disagree with you regarding the film being "hollow". You don't have to like it; I acknowledge that the film is not for everyone. Hell, I only saw this film twice- the first time being when I was a kid, and the second only recently. Just here me out on this. Here we go.

My Neighbor Totoro is a theme film. It's a vignette-y type of story that follows the summer of two young girls as they explore the countryside. The themes I'm discussing are that of the wonders of childhood. To further explain, let me discuss the film's release date.

This movie premiered alongside Grave of the Fireflies in the summer of 1988. The movie takes place in 1958. We can safely assume that the parents in the audience were around the same ages as Satsuki and Mei. So, the kids get whimsical fantasy, and all the mommies and daddies get a nostalgia trip. It's win-win, really.

So, what the hell does any of this have to do with anything? Most of the film is the two sisters exploring all the little things that adults don't notice. Remember those scenes where Mei and Satsuki look for soot sprites, marvel over nature, and learn more about the creatures (Totoro and friends) that reside near their home. It's really more or less about the girls living their childhoods to the fullest. That is what this film is about, in my personal opinion.

Really, I think parents and young children are the ones who'll understand this movie on a subconscious level the most. I myself liked the movie a lot more the second time than the first. Then again, I'm just a nobody on the internet, wasting my time on an anime forum. So who knows? Maybe I'm wrong.
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HaruhiToy



Joined: 15 Apr 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 1:22 pm Reply with quote
Akane the Catgirl wrote:
^ I disagree with you regarding the film being "hollow".

I have to second this. It would be better to say the story is not complex in any way. The emotions, attitudes, and actions of each character are perfectly simple and understandable and the depth comes from the intensity and the solidity of those feelings.

It was intended to appeal to children who would be lost with a more complex story. And the rest of us that want to experience that again. It succeeds to 11 on a scale of 1-to-10 as far as I am concerned.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 1:36 pm Reply with quote
Akane the Catgirl wrote:

So, what the hell does any of this have to do with anything? Most of the film is the two sisters exploring all the little things that adults don't notice. Remember those scenes where Mei and Satsuki look for soot sprites, marvel over nature, and learn more about the creatures (Totoro and friends) that reside near their home. It's really more or less about the girls living their childhoods to the fullest. That is what this film is about, in my personal opinion.


Every Christmas, I try to sell at least one person on getting past the title and watching the 1944 "Curse of the Cat People", Val Lewton's warm-hearted child-POV family film--
I tried to explain the plot about Amy & her imaginary friend--complete with running away in the snow at the end--and was reduced to saying "It's sort of like a classic-40's B/W RKO version of Totoro."

I remember Siskel & Ebert reviewing the movie back when the Fox/Troma dub appeared out of nowhere, and Siskel was in the bored-adult camp saying "We spent the first half hour worrying about dust bunnies?"
Yes. We do. We see it from kids' imaginative viewpoint of all the things out in the woodsy country house, and believing all the legends of natural creatures. (Back in Hayao's days before progress came along.)
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ailblentyn



Joined: 28 Mar 2009
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 1:40 pm Reply with quote
Siskel more or less admitted later that his judgment was hasty, didn't he?
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EricJ2



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PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 2:05 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Most importantly—he believes them when they talk about Totoro and Catbus. Whether or not he truly believes, or whether he just chalks it up to imagination (he alludes to Totoro as being something only children can see) is irrelevant—that he gives them the license to imagine and act as they please, without his outside influence, is.


I also remember when the Troma press-tour company rep was trying to sell parents on noticing this one away from the Disney movies, and, while not gushing like Lasseter, selling family-review parents on what positive values it had:
"She tells him about the creatures in the woods, and the dad...believes her! Very Happy "

The way he expressed the amazed Disney-would-never-do-that-ness of it sort of shared our reaction of "When...has that ever happened...in a Western kids' movie?"
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 2:24 pm Reply with quote
Akane the Catgirl wrote:
Then again, I'm just a nobody on the internet, wasting my time on an anime forum. So who knows? Maybe I'm wrong.


Going by this, I will not make any effort to buy your counter argument because, in you own words, you are a nobody wasting your time on an anime forum.

I might have been inclined to give Totoro another chance because your argument is well made and persuasive. But I cannot value the input of posters who belittle their own opinions.

And by the way, I never said that the whole film is pretty hollow. I was referring to how the story was constructed.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 3:17 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Bamboo wrote:
It's even more surprising to learn that Miyazaki and his team knew that it wouldn't be a success right from the get-go,

Perhaps they knew that the story in this movie was pretty hollow.


No, it's that, in trying to recall their own more slower-paced and natural Japanese childhoods thirty years back, they made the mistake of telling audiences and distributors that it was in the woodsy back-country of 50's postwar Japan--
And the general reaction was, "...A HAPPY postwar movie?? Shocked "

So, as Akane points out, they ended up distributing it with Grave of the Fireflies, which was the recollections most of those involved were expecting.
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wonderwomanhero





PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 3:41 pm Reply with quote
Akane the Catgirl wrote:
This movie premiered alongside Grave of the Fireflies in the summer of 1988. The movie takes place in 1958. We can safely assume that the parents in the audience were around the same ages as Satsuki and Mei. So, the kids get whimsical fantasy, and all the mommies and daddies get a nostalgia trip. It's win-win, really.


Just thinking about the millions that saw both films back to back....the films in sequence would provide quite the mood whiplash.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 3:45 pm Reply with quote
Sigh. Probably the single most overrated anime film, ever.

EricJ2 wrote:
So, as Akane points out, they ended up distributing it with Grave of the Fireflies, which was the recollections most of those involved were expecting.


Except filmgoers walked out of Grave of the Fireflies but did not walk out of My Neighbor Totoro. This meant My Neighbor Totoro had to be shown first or else all the kiddies would have already left before it appeared.
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Splitter



Joined: 19 May 2003
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 3:47 pm Reply with quote
This is one of those rare movies where there is something new to find in it as the audience ages. The experience I have watching it now is very different than when I watched it when I was 10, and different than when I was 20. It's a film I look forward to revisiting every few years to see just how it will affect me at that point in my life. That is an accomplishment few filmmakers ever make.
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spacmace



Joined: 16 Jun 2006
Posts: 16
PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 4:11 pm Reply with quote
If anyone asked me what my childhood cartoon was, I would always say "My Neighbor Totoro". My Grandfather gave me the VHS as a gift when I was younger and I watched it countless times (and yes my mother grew sick of it Very Happy). I've since bought Disney's DVD release and always enjoy watching it once in a while. Totoro is still very special to me and will always be my favorite Miyazaki film.

"The Locations of Totoro" extra sounds really interesting, don't remember seeing on the DVD version. I should probably get around to buying the DVD/BD release.
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Lord Dcast



Joined: 07 Nov 2014
Posts: 644
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 28, 2014 5:26 pm Reply with quote
Wait, this is the last one? What about Porco Rosso and all the others? Where do they fit in? Ghibli marathon my butt; it's like trying to watch a good movie and leave halfway through...
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