Re: Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club
Yes, I love My Neighbor Totoro and would go so far as to say it is Miyazaki's best and my favorite animated film. Such a warm and pleasant film that perfectly evokes a child's trust in the security of their home, family, and natural surroundings. I love that there is no "evil", no crime, no crazy misunderstandings. The father actually believes what his children say rather than rejecting them out of hand, recognizing that they are all part of a larger spiritual fabric.And of course the film is filled with Miyazaki's signature magic. Totoro is such a wonderful creation and the Catbus too! The scene in the rain when Totoro suddenly appears at the girls' side is among the most perfectly executed and moving scenes in any film. Joe Hisiashi's score (my wife just got me the Japanese soundtrack for Father's Day) is a tremendous asset as well. I really do feel like a kid again when I watch it. I'm a softie and have cried during lots of films; almost always from sadness. Totoro, and another Studio Ghibli masterpiece, Only Yesterday are among the only films I can think of where I cry out of joy for the characters.
Roger Ebert wrote a tremendous review comparing the sensibilities of Totoro vs. traditional American animation:
Here is a children's film made for the world we should live in, rather than the one we occupy. A film with no villains. No fight scenes. No evil adults. No fighting between the two kids. No scary monsters. No darkness before the dawn. A world that is benign. A world where if you meet a strange towering creature in the forest, you curl up on its tummy and have a nap.
#293 The Devils (1971) - Ken Russell's film of Aldous Huxley's novel "The Devils of Loudon", is a grandly mad affair. Oliver Reed stars as Father Grandier, spiritual and political leader of the walled French city of Loudon. Loosely interpreting his priestly responsibilities, he beds several women of the town. He's also lusted after by the nuns of the local convent. Into this sexual froth steps the ambitious Cardinal Richelieu. Anxious to increase crown (and his own) control over France, he appoints a witch hunter to investigate charges of witchcraft and possession at the convent and to come up with any charge possible against Grandier to end his control over the town.
Filled with chaotic energy, The Devils is a wild, thought-provoking, disturbing, challenging, and altogether exciting mess of a film. It virtually drips acid in it's attacks on the Catholic Church, societal conformity, the trampling of freedom by arrogant authority, the hypocritical demonization of sexuality, and other territory similar to that trod by Arthur Miller's The Crucible. The stylization, costumes, sets (designed by future director of similar crazed films, Derek Jarman), eccentric acting, score, all work together to overwhelm the senses with stimuli. I wasn't that familiar with Oliver Reed (with Hammer's Curse of the Werewolf about the only other thing I'd seen to this point with him in a starring role), except by reputation. Here he is superb, treating his role with complete seriousness and sincerity in a film where the wrong notes could have easily allowed it to slip into camp. Vanessa Redgrave is also terrific as the head nun in a biting, sexually charged performance.
But ultimately, The Devils is really a film experience that can't be put into words. One should just see it. Unfortunately that has been pretty difficult to do as this is one of those films that has been heavily censored and issued in a number of versions over the years. Hopefully Warner will finally come through with a high quality DVD of the complete version as the DVD I saw, while complete, could be improved upon a good deal visually. See it if you can, I was mightily impressed. - A-
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