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Totoro for Two
I went with my brother to see My Neighbour Totoro at the Barbican last night - an early birthday treat from him. It was an excellent production, which I can't show you any pictures of, on pain of being smothered by soot sprites, but can assure you was wonderfully inventive, visually and aurally.
Why I am I taunting you like this? Well, it's just that having the show broken into two halves brought home to me how much "tighter," from a plot point of view, the first half of the film is than the second. Up to the point where the girls and Totoro make the seeds grow, it's really hard to fault. And then we get the formal climax, or double climax, first with the mother being reported to be dangerously ill, and then Mei going missing as she tries to walk all the way to the hospital carrying some healthy corn that she's just picked, and being believed to have fallen into a nearby pond when the search party finds a slipper like hers.
Except that it's not her sandal, as her sister Satsuki quickly confirms. Mei is actually fine, if temporarily lost. And the mother, when they eventually reach her, turns out not to be that ill either - it was just a cold.
It seems to me there's an obvious alternative plot, which I find it hard to believe that Miyazaki didn't at least consider. In this version - which is also basically the version in Mei's head - the mother really is in danger, and the children save her by bringing her some needful medicine or charm, perhaps carried to the hospital by magical agency. This is the plot of The Magician's Nephew, where a winged horse plays the part of the cat bus, and of many other stories besides. (Likewise, Mei could have fallen into the pond and then been rescued.)
Was Miyazaki holding back on the 'mild threat' with a view to his very young audience? Or was his restraint a more purely artistic decision - a distaste for crude plot trump cards? I don't know, but I report it as I found it.
Why I am I taunting you like this? Well, it's just that having the show broken into two halves brought home to me how much "tighter," from a plot point of view, the first half of the film is than the second. Up to the point where the girls and Totoro make the seeds grow, it's really hard to fault. And then we get the formal climax, or double climax, first with the mother being reported to be dangerously ill, and then Mei going missing as she tries to walk all the way to the hospital carrying some healthy corn that she's just picked, and being believed to have fallen into a nearby pond when the search party finds a slipper like hers.
Except that it's not her sandal, as her sister Satsuki quickly confirms. Mei is actually fine, if temporarily lost. And the mother, when they eventually reach her, turns out not to be that ill either - it was just a cold.
It seems to me there's an obvious alternative plot, which I find it hard to believe that Miyazaki didn't at least consider. In this version - which is also basically the version in Mei's head - the mother really is in danger, and the children save her by bringing her some needful medicine or charm, perhaps carried to the hospital by magical agency. This is the plot of The Magician's Nephew, where a winged horse plays the part of the cat bus, and of many other stories besides. (Likewise, Mei could have fallen into the pond and then been rescued.)
Was Miyazaki holding back on the 'mild threat' with a view to his very young audience? Or was his restraint a more purely artistic decision - a distaste for crude plot trump cards? I don't know, but I report it as I found it.
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(For background, Eaglet's first screen time was My Neighbor Totoro, and for a couple months gosh darn it, it was the only channel our TV received. They came home to a bedroom decorated with Mei and Totoro and sootsprite wall decals, and have amassed a collection of Totoro stuffies, of which the Catbus gets the most attention these days. They made me a jigsaw puzzle for a holiday gift a couple years ago, from a drawing of our cats, the Catbus, and Totoro. IOW, the movie has been a Big Part of their life.)
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