My Neighbor Totoro

1988 animated feature

Rating: 18/20 (Emma: 14/20; Abbey: 15/20)

Plot: A professor and his two daughters move into an old country house to be close to the hospital where the matriarch of the family is convalescing after a long illness. A neighbor boy warns that the house is haunted, and the girls do spot some creepy dust mite-ish spirits before they quickly scurry away. Once the girls feel more at home, they aren't seen anymore. They also meet a big fluffy bunny thing named Totoro, their neighbor, and a bus/cat hybrid. The girls try to adapt to a house without a mother in it.

Delightful! This has got to be one of the most accurate depictions of children's feelings that I've ever seen. Or maybe it's an accurate look at difficult moments from the point of view of children. My favorite thing about this is how it doesn't focus on the negative stuff that's going on, but on the details that take the characters away from that negative stuff. The titular Totoro is simple but iconic, and I can't imagine anybody watching this movie without wanting to go for a ride in the cat-bus. The animation is beautiful, and the story, although honestly there's not much of a story here, drifts along so softly that you just want to cuddle up with it. There's the best adjective I can use to describe My Neighbor Totoro actually--cuddly. I love everything about this movie, including the songs used for the credits. Cuddly and delightful!

Ponyo

2008 fairy tale

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 14/20; Dylan: 5/20; Emma: 12/20; Abbey: 15/20)

Plot: An animated version of the trippiest episode of The Golden Girls. Dorothy, Blanche, Sophia, and Rose are caught shoplifting make-up from a Walgreens and spend the night in prison. They meet a drug dealer named Ponyo behind bars, and once they're all back on the outside, the girls after paying a small fine and promising to never do it again and Ponyo on a technicality, the girls score some hallucinogens which they ingest by a dumpster. Ponyo says, "Enjoy the dope, ya old bags," before riding off on a scooter. Dorothy, Blanche, Sophia, and Rose begin to hallucinate. Blanche mistakes Rose for a scorpion and stabs her seventy-four times, later claiming that it was in self-defense. Dorothy walks into the sea, mistaking herself for a mermaid, and, because she's not really a mermaid, drowns. Sophia flees, eventually winding up in Tokyo. Ponyo is never heard from again.

I just don't get the logic of Miyazaki's worlds. The world these characters inhabit doesn't obey any of the laws that hold the real world together, and the narrative progression doesn't always make complete sense. Plot holes? More like plot canyons. You'll walk away from Ponyo with something that almost looks like a completed puzzle, but then you'll check your pockets and find fifteen (maybe sixteen) more pieces that you didn't realize you had. And how did the puzzle pieces get in your pocket anyway? You didn't put them there. It must have been an evil wizard, you figure, and then you laugh at yourself because there's no such thing as evil wizards. I don't try to completely understand any of these Ghibli studio movies, at least the first time I watch them. I just let the evil wizards in through the crevices and permit them to tickle me. As with other Miyazaki cartoons, there are some environmental themes, lovely animation, and surreal touches. And like the others, it seems to be told from the perspective of a child, almost to the point where you feel like you're missing things as an adult or even peeking in on a world you're not necessarily supposed to peek in on. The settings are beautiful, especially the unnatural underwater scenes filled with creatures (and colors) that don't really exist. I also liked most of the characters although I was never sure what was going on with Ponyo's father or the grumpy old woman. And I really like the anthropomorphizing of the water during the tsunami scene. I have to go now because an evil wizard is going to try to hide my car keys.

Spirited Away

2001 Japanese cartoon

Rating: 19/20

Plot: Chihiro and her parents are moving to a new home in a new town. She's only ten and doesn't really want to move, but children don't get to make those kinds of decisions. On the way, her father detours and takes the family to an abandoned theme park. While there, her parents gluttonously devour the goods at an abandoned restaurant and turn into pigs. A boy named Haku tries to convince her to leave, but it's too late. Spirits gradually arrive and frequent a bath house. Chihiro has to find a way to transform her parents back into parents and finds out that getting a job at the bath house is the only way. A big-headed witch, a stinky spirit, a six-armed boiler room man, anthropomorphic dust mites, a magical ghost thingy, and dozens of other unusual character help and/or get in her way.

It's really difficult for me to articulate why this film connects with me like it does. For whatever reason, it seeps into the lobes. I think I would give this a 20 if I were Japanese. I'm sure there's some references to Japanese folklore, Japanese customs, or Japanese history that I'm not hip to that unfortunately probably hurts my chances of ever fully understanding this. I can appreciate the real sense of wonder and dreamy mystery, the gorgeous animation, the originality of the characters, and both the gentle fragility and thematic depth of the story. Like a Japanese Alice in Wonderland, it doesn't actually have to mean anything at all to succeed, but like all great works of art (and this is a great work of art), it's completely open to interpretation and does mean several things at once to difference audiences. Is it a coming-of-age story? Is it a critique of the greed and thoughtlessness of contemporary society? Is it about the contrast between the innocence of childhood and the futility and confusion of adulthood? Who knows? But it is exactly what an animated fairy tale should be. If dreams were as good as this, I would never want to wake up. Miyazaki has borrowed from the world we inhabit and managed to create an entirely new world, one with its own rules, its own logic, its own norms. Enchanting and wonderful and vivid and rich and magical and fantastic, this world in Spirited Away is impossible to forget and a joy to ponder. It's easy to feel lost but at the same time absorbed, and that's exactly what makes this animated movie about as good as animated movies can get.

Porco Rosso

1992 cartoon


Rating: 15/20 (Dylan: 11/20; Emma: 11/20; Abbey: slept)

Plot: It's early 1930s Fascist Italy, and the title anti-hero has abandoned the Italian airforce. Flying the skies as a humanoid pig (the result of a curse), he's employed as a bounty hunter to protect the seas from sky pirates. Those sky pirates are a filthy lot. An egomaniacal American pops onto the scene, falls for Porco's love interest (and seemingly any other female), and decides to challenge Porco in a dogfight to make his name internationally known. I forget his name. Porco flies off to have a mechanic in Italy, right under the government's nose, make repairs to his red plane. He meets the mechanic's outspoken and talented niece (another Miyazaki strong female character) who winds up coming back to his hide-out. Conflicts collide, and Porco's puzzling past is gradually revealed.


This is Miyazaki, so of course it looks great--beautiful hand-painted skies especially. The air flight and fight scenes are a lot of fun, and the title character is complex and dynamic and unfortunately voiced by Michael Keaton. (The only other voice I recognized, by the way, is Brad Garrett from Everybody Wants to Screw Raymond.) I could have used a little more diversity with the storytelling (this is definitely a more simple story than a lot of the other Ghibli stuff), and the plot crosses the line into melodrama at times. Really, it's a plot that could have been lifted from 1940s Hollywood although most of the melodramatic stuff is left unresolved by the sketchy, partially indeterminate end. There are some funny moments, both for me (sort of an adult) and my children, but it's really that Miyazaki attention to details, sometimes very small details, that give Porco Rosso flight.


Note: I only picked this up so that I could use that pun.


Here I am: