Here’s yet another Studio Ghibli film as working through them is easy on Netflix. Watching this after Spirited Away is an especially illuminating experience as this one feels so much like a trial run for the later, much grander film. I like this a lot more however precisely because its restraint actually make the magical elements that are present all the more magical. That it’s more grounded also means that the shadow of grief and tragedy behind all of the sweetness feels more real and more poignant. The lessons here are that less really is more and it’s important to actually have things that matter even in a dream-like fantasy.

Tatsuo Kusakabe and his two young daughters, Satsuki and Mei, move into an old, long abandoned house in a rural area. While exploring its dark spaces, they notice large numbers of tiny, sooty sprites fleeing from the light. Instead of being terrified, they are amazed and delighted. As they settle down with Satsuki needing to go to school while their father commutes to work in Tokyo, we learn that their mother is recuperating in a hospital for some unspecified long-term illness. Left with a nanny, Mei plays around the house by herself and one day, following a trail of acorns on the ground, comes across a pair of small spirits. She happily follows them down a hidden trail that eventually ends in a hollow at the base of the huge camphor tree that overlooks the area. There a large, furry spirit is sleeping and Mei instantly identifies him as a troll she names Totoro. Naturally he is friendly and though the adults are unable to see him and the other spirits, he appears to Mei and later Satsuki and helps them deal with their new life in the countryside and their worries about their sick mother.

This is still a children’s film but it’s a good one, playing to the trope that only children have the innocence and sense of wonder that lets them perceive and interact with the spirit world. Yet it doesn’t mean it’s all imaginary. Instead the gifts and powers affect the real world in subtle ways that can be easily dismissed by the adults, but mean the world to Satsuki and Mei. By doling out the magical moments more stingily, this film actually heightens the impact of each of them. The imagery of Tororo with an umbrella or spinning around standing atop a tiny top are deservedly iconic at least partially because it’s not just an endless succession of amazing sights one after another as in Spirited Away. The spirit world as depicted here isn’t a separate realm entirely removed from our own. Instead, it is always there even if we can’t see it. At first, I thought the scene with the impossibly fast growing cluster of trees was too much. In the event it struck precisely the right balance, a promise to the children that one day, given enough time and care, it can grow to that extent but not right away.

Another thing that surprised me is how much grief there is underlying the cheeriness. Early on we see the family of a father and two daughters moving to a new house in the countryside and we can’t help asking ourselves, “Where’s the mother?” Satsuki’s innocuous line that the adults told them her mother only had a cold and yet ended being hospitalized for so long is devastating in its impact. The panic and fear when everyone realizes Mei has gone missing is palpable and the film isn’t afraid of making some truly dark implications. There’s a lot of joy and excitement in this film as Totoro takes the girls on wild adventures, but you also get the sense that the two girls need this break. There’s a reason why they moved to this abandoned house and why the two girls are left to their own devices so much of the time. These real world concerns ground the film and it’s nice to think of Totoro as a spirit guardian who is watching over them.

So yeah, this is another really great Studio Ghibli film. It may be a children’s film but it’s not childish at all and it succeeds in giving Totoro so much personality with visuals alone as he doesn’t speak a single legible word. It’s magical in ways that truly matter as it’s not just about being a sensory extravaganza. Highly recommended.