Miyazaki is a genius.
My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:24
Fresh:21
Rotten:3
Average Rating:8/10
Runtime: 87 mins
Genre: Childrens
Synopsis: Departing from the action-oriented plots of his previous films (NAUSICAÄ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND and LAPUTA, CASTLE IN THE SKY), Japan's most beloved animator, Hayao Miyazaki, provides a... Departing from the action-oriented plots of his previous films (NAUSICAÄ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND and LAPUTA, CASTLE IN THE SKY), Japan's most beloved animator, Hayao Miyazaki, provides a slower-paced, stunningly realistic portrayal of life in the countryside. When their mother is hospitalized because of an unspecified illness, two young sisters spend a summer in the Japanese countryside with their father. The children's strange new environment turns out to be a natural wonderland filled with exotic real-life creatures and a trio of furry, woodland sprites who can only be seen by children. The film evokes both the terrors and wonders that children can experience unbeknownst to adults--a feeling the young Miyazaki knew only too well after his mother was hospitalized because of spinal tuberculosis. With homages to ALICE IN WONDERLAND and MARY POPPINS, the second film from Studio Ghibli delighted audiences and put the young animation studio on firm financial footing. [More]
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
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Reviews for My Neighbor Totoro
The painted backgrounds are lush, realistic, and full of luxuriant foliage. The character animation, while stiff by Disney standards, is appropriate to the characters and expressive enough to bring them to life for the audience.
Obviously aimed at an international audience, the film evinces a disorienting combination of cultures that produces a nowhere land more confused than fascinating.
what Miyazaki has animated is an idyll, that most melancholic and nostalgic of genres, where landscapes vanish, innocence is lost and death is as much a part of nature as life.
The lack of sentimentality will be utterly refreshing to those raised on a diet of Disney.
How can I describe its inexplicable power? It is like how childhood memories feel, if you had a happy childhood wide-eyed and blissful, matter-of-factly magical and entrancingly prosaic
The beauty of My Neighbor Totoro is its simplicity. It's a warm and friendly story that just made me feel good after watching it.
A little dated and a little immature when compared to later Miyazaki works, but that's not such a bad thing, really.
A sensibilidade ao retratar os personagens, a magia do universo concebido por Miyazaki e a qualidade impecável da animação fazem deste filme um clássico instantâneo.
Too much of the film...is taken up with stiff, mechanical chitchat.
Has such assured naturalism and incidental detail that it seems we are watching animated actors, not just cartoon characters
Showcases Miyazaki's delightful iconography of spirits, demons, and wood sprites at its most gentle.
My Neighbor Totoro has a realistic and dramatic maturity and an ingenuous sensibility (many scenes inherit a child’s curious wonder). In contrast, there is fantasy, one, armed with Miyazaki’s strength as its author, imaginative and totally original
A welcome antidote to the US cultural imperialism of countless inferior Disney sell-thru videos . . .
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 36% 36% | G.I. Joe: The Rise of … |
| 52% 52% | The Taking of Pelham 1… |
| 45% 45% | Ice Age: Dawn of the D… |
| 19% 19% | Transformers: Revenge … |
| 55% 55% | Orphan |
| Tomatometer Percentage | Movie |
|---|---|
| 98% 98% | Up |
| 88% 88% | Ballast |
| 66% 66% | The Merry Gentleman |
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