"I could see them too, when I was young."

Rating: 9/10 (15 May 2016)

Everything is magical when you're a child. A gust of wind over a grassy meadow, a giant conifer reaching to the sky, tadpoles swirling in a puddle, a brand new house to run through and explore. Life is new, exciting, and mysterious.
My Neighbor Totoro is a film that perfectly captures the wonder and beauty of life as seen through the eyes of a child. This is Hayao Miyazaki at his most restrained. In the broad scheme of his filmography, it is a distillation of everything that makes his work so effective and beloved: stunningly authentic character animation brimming with personality, gorgeously detailed settings and landscapes, and an ability to capture the magic in the small, inconsequential moments of life.
We follow Satsuki and Mei, two young sisters who have moved with their father to a new house in an idyllic rural village. It is soon revealed that the purpose of this move is to be closer to their chronically ill mother who is staying in a nearby hospital - a detail which gains significant weight with the knowledge that Miyazaki's own mother spent a lot of time in the hospital with tuberculosis when he was a child. Although their mother's illness does loom over the film and is a crucial grounding element, it is relatively distant and far from its focal point. Instead, the meat of the film is simply Satuski and Mei exploring their new home and surroundings, assimilating to life in a new town, and, of course, meeting Totoro and friends.
Totoro and his companions are the "spirits of the forest", as the girls' father puts it. He can't see them, nor can any of the adults in the film. For Mei and Satsuki, though, they are very much alive and real. Totoro acts as a personification of the aforementioned magic of nature and life. He's what makes acorns sprout into trees and propels the wind over the plains. Of course Mei and Satsuki can see him - for them, the wonder and awe of life is still fresh and exhilarating. And even though their father may not physically see these creatures as he works by candle light amidst a mess of papers and books, he seems to remember a time when he did. He nurtures the wonderment that his daughters feel and vicariously experiences it through them, as do we.
All Miyzaki films have an environmental theme and display a fond respect for nature; here, it's reverential. Wind rushes over the grassy farmland, butterflies flutter in and out of frame, a snail inches slowly up the stem of a flower, a toad crawls along a dirt road in the middle of a rainstorm, a fish bobs to the surface of a pond setting small ripples in motion which radiate away. Miyazaki hangs over each of these moments and makes it impossible not to experience their simple beauty as the girls do.
This is the essence of My Neighbor Totoro. It's a simple, humble, and reflective film free of sensory excess, antagonists, or even a traditional plot. It merely sets out to magnify and bask in the magic of life which becomes all too muted as you age. "I could see them too, when I was young", states a warm, elderly neighbor of the girls. With this film, you might yet again.