Ulkoilmanäytös: Naapurini Totoro

My Neighbour Totoro is his [Hayao Miyazaki’s] less-is-more work: a pastoral, pantheist chamber drama, where the ‘chamber’ lies under the canopy of a great camphor tree that lords over the woods behind a tumbledown farmhouse. Into this adventure realm move two sisters, pre-school Mei and preteen Satsuke, with their inattentive dad, to be nearer their hospitalised mum. Each in turn encounters the spirit of the woods: a giant, furry, ovoid mammal with mighty powers of flying, horticulture and slumber. (He comes with two smaller surrogates, who may or may not indicate a further world of totori.)

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So many films ask us to see the adult world through children’s eyes; My Neighbour Totoro summons wilder, wide-eyed wonder at the forces that inform us: life, nature, connection, change. And, of course, it hymns the uplift of imagination, with Joe Hisaishi’s entrancing synth tunes essential to the magic. (...)

A swift hit in Japan, it has spread its spell steadily across the world ever since; a third of a century after its release, many younger critics have grown up with it. It’s clearly an antidote to urbanisation and technology, and a rebuke to a world of environmental breakdown. It’s also a comfort and a reassurance that shows we still have artists who can create something timeless.

Nick Bradshaw, Sight and Sound

The Japanese focus at Espoo Ciné IFF is supported by Scandinavia-Japan Sasakawa Foundation.


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