For nearly four decades, Studio Ghibli has been regarded as the gold standard for animation, perhaps even more so than Disney and Pixar (which have unsurprisingly collaborated with the Japanese animation studio on a few occasions in recent years), and the reasons are extremely obvious. Few studios have been as committed to capturing quality over quantity more than the artists that dedicated years of their lives to producing impeccable, well-crafted works that are definitive of not only the era in which they were made, but the entire medium. Hayao Miyazaki has always been the figurehead for the studio, and appropriately so – he co-founded it with Isao Takahata (an extraordinarily gifted animator in his own right) and producer Toshio Suzuki, and who may have only made a small handful of films over the course of his career, but each one is unique, compelling and achingly beautiful. He embodies the spirit of time crafting the most beautiful art, with his process of taking years to complete a single film being one of the clearest examples of how he has always prioritized making films that are determined to meet a very elite quality. Going back to the very start of his career, we find perhaps his greatest work coming in the form of the second film he made after the establishment of Studio Ghibli, the remarkable and powerful My Neighbor Totoro (Japanese: となりのトトロ), which is often cited as not only the film that helped confirm Miyazaki as one of the most creative artists in the industry, but helped define both the studio and the entire medium of anime as a whole, which is certainly not an easy accomplishment. A small but powerful film with as much heart as it has a genuine sense of lovable humour, My Neighbor Totoro is an incredible achievement, a delicate and meaningful journey through the past, where we are guided by a filmmaker whose command of his craft is unprecedented, and whose forthright commitment to the art of storytelling has yet to be replicated.

There are many layers at the heart of My Neighbor Totoro, and truly understanding the film entails looking at these themes from the fundamental level, all the way to where it is at its most high concept. This is not an overly complex film, but it has certain elements that do require some thought and reflection, not necessarily to understand the film, but rather to fully appreciate it. Starting from the surface, we immediately understand what Miyazaki was attempting to do with this story – at the heart of the film we have a narrative centred on two young girls growing up in Japan in the 1950s, being raised by their father while their mother is currently being treated for an unknown illness in the hospital, leading them to latch onto any form of escape that they can find in their daily lives, which is essentially the impetus for the story as a whole. This is a quintessential coming-of-age story, something that Miyazaki has done on multiple occasions. He has always had a fascination with examining the world as seen through the eyes of children, and how their childhood naivete and vivid imaginations allow them to create places, people and things of which even the most creative adults may struggle to conceive. This is where the film spends most of its time, watching the character of Satsuki and Mei navigate their new home in the pastoral corners of Japan by immersing themselves in its mystical secrets – we don’t even know whether or not Totoro and the other fantastical scenarios are real or just fabrications on the part of the young girls, but the point is that it doesn’t matter, since Miyazaki makes us believe it to be true, which is an astonishing achievement to get even the most cynical of viewers to suspend disbelief and just undergo this journey with these characters. There have been many fascinating discussions about the overall meaning of the story, and what specific details are covered in this coming-of-age parallel – whether it is about growing up in a very particular moment in the past, or simply a story about coming of age and realizing some of life’s harsh realities are all a matter of interpretation, and My Neighbor Totoro captures this through its unimpeachable spirit of curiosity, one that never offers us all the answers, but instead gives us insights into the lives of these characters.

Yet, there is always something deeper – a Miyazaki film without some sense of a more complex meaning, whether philosophical or historical, is certainly not something we are ever likely to encounter, even if some of his films are less serious than others. There is a cultural specificity to every one of his films, including those that are steeped in fantasy and otherworldly dimensions – even when traversing entirely abstract and far-fetched ideas, his work is always reflective of a very precise understanding of culture. As he got more experimental as a filmmaker, he started to branch out in other directions, finding details in the more off-the-wall narratives that often populated his films. However, My Neighbor Totoro serves to be the happy medium between the gentle, poetic pastoral realism that was very common at the time (just consider the masterful Grave of the Fireflies the same year, or Only Yesterday, which was in the process of being made at the time), and the more peculiar subject matter that had always fascinated Miyazaki and his cohorts. The small nuances we find throughout the film are paired up with some fantastical elements, and very importantly don’t distract from the sense of simplicity that governs the story, but rather add to it. This is found in how the story arranges its themes in a very particular manner – this is mainly done through the character of Totoro, a wood sprite (the only categorization in terms of his species, the ambiguity adding a further level of charm onto the film, which never feels impelled to give us all the answers, and instead implores us to just take the subjects as they are on the screen, rather than seeking an explanation), who we see as existing in the human world, rather than being the pathway for these girls to enter into a magical realm. Miyazaki’s approach to fantasy is not to imply that there is an additional world in which these more abstract ideas occur – instead, they exist in our world, we just rarely take notice of them. The blend of common ideas with more offbeat ideas creates such a fascinating portrait of Japanese culture, with My Neighbor Totoro not being a definitive text by any means, but rather one interpretation of the very specific divide between reality and mythology or ancient traditions.

However, it seems appropriate to say that very few people will watch a Miyazaki film for the express purpose of focusing on the cultural specificity. We watch his films because they are the embodiment of pure artistic expression – beautifully made and deeply meaningful, there hasn’t been an instance of one of his films not meeting the expectations to at least inspire awe and wonder in the viewer, who will undoubtedly feel a very strong connection to the material from the start. As we mentioned, the director takes years to put these films together – he works at a slow pace, which is perfectly appropriate considering how close every one of his films comes to perfection. Even the less-popular works like Ponyo and The Castle of Cagliostro are visually striking, and have their charms. My Neighbor Totoro is not any different – the pure amount of detail put into every frame of this film, not only visually but also aurally, is astonishing. You can comb through every moment in this film, and you will not find a single image that feels like it doesn’t belong, or one note that feels out of place (credit always has to go to the incredible Joe Hisaishi, whose scores for Studio Ghibli films are some of the most striking musical compositions in history, even beyond the realm of film music), which makes this one of the very rare instances of a film that is as close to perfection as one can possibly get, at least within this genre. No one should ever look at a film and imagine areas in which it could improve, but even if you tried, it is singularly impossible to fault any aspect of this film’s production (there may be some divided feelings on the story, but that’s another matter entirely), which is certainly not hyperbolic. The creativity Miyazaki brings to this film evokes a spirit of wonder and inspiration, and it is not a surprise that many people have commented on their desire to live in the world of this film. My Neighbor Totoro is pure artistic ambition represented on screen, and while it does function as being one of Miyazaki’s more simple films in terms of concept (especially since it doesn’t run very long – he is one of the few contemporary animators who can legitimately demand a running time of over two hours), but it has enough complexity embedded in it to stand alongside his later masterpieces, which would not have existed without this magnificent film.

There is a reason why, even to this day when watching a film distributed by Studio Ghibli, we are confronted by that comforting blue screen, on which a sketch of Totoro is drawn, even if Miyazaki himself was not at the helm of this production – the character has come to be all-encompassing of the company, and the medium as a whole, and is appropriately considered one of the most recognizable images in all of contemporary art – and it all started with this film, an 87-minute long comedy that defied expectations and set a standard for an entire medium. While we may all have our personal choice for his greatest work (I lean towards the camp that views Spirited Away as the greatest animated film ever made), it is difficult to disregard the impact My Neighbor Totoro has had over the years, with both its story, technique and emotional content being the standard to which nearly every modern animated film tries to replicate – but the reality is that Miyazaki struck a raw nerve with this film, which immediately proved his mettle as a filmmaker, and while he may have made bigger and better films in technical terms later on, there will never be another moment in which he finally was bestowed with the status of being a master of his craft, which happened almost immediately after audiences were first introduced to Totoro and his lovable band of misfits. There is something so magical about this film – even in our adult years, the viewer will feel that familiar sense of travelling back in time to their childhood, where we were fuelled almost entirely by the simultaneous sense of curiosity and wonder, which may have meant that we didn’t know how serious life actually was, but instead occupied our own space, in which we were guided less by logic and more by imagination. Miyazaki’s ability to not only evoke these feelings, but transport us to that psychological state, even just for a couple of hours, is why he is one of our greatest living artists, and someone whose reputation will only continue to reach astronomical heights over time, especially as more viewers begin to realize how he is an absolute master of his craft, which appears to be a fact that is passed down from generations. We are lucky to still have Miyazaki (and his upcoming final film will be a bittersweet affair), but even looking at his work from a distance, it is clear that they are going to stand the test of time – and while My Neighbor Totoro is neither his first nor his greatest film, it is the one that helped define him as an artist, and whether we view it as a complex, layered work filled with meaning, or just as a charming, beautifully poetic exercise in escapism, it is difficult to deny the appeal that defines the film, a true masterpiece in absolutely every sense of the word.