Fairy-Tale Films Beyond Disney by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781134628278
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Boundary crossing, apocalyptic visions, and the nature of dream and reality all play important roles in the works of Studio Ghibli, arguably the greatest producer of fantasy animation since Walt Disney Studios. But whereas Disney has been harshly criticized for its formulaic stories, regressive patriarchal agenda, and relentless pandering to audiences looking for “feel good” entertainment, Ghibli is internationally recognized for its remarkably original narratives, strong and independent young heroines, and a moral agenda which, while utopian in its message of hope against painful odds, is also deeply rooted in an awareness of the darkness and complexity of the world from which it springs.

One element on which Disney and Ghibli concur is in their dazzling use of animation to create stunning and memorable visual images that suggest a world of wonder. In the case of Ghibli, however, this world of wonder is not always restricted to a conventional fairy-tale setting in an alternative narrative space. Instead, in such works as Porco Rosso (1992), about a flyer who has transformed into a pig after World War I, or in the 1995 love story Whisper of the Heart, which begins with its young heroine following a cat, wonder drifts in and out of the ordinary world.

This is especially true of one of the studio’s early masterpieces, My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari no Totoro 1988). Acclaimed as one of the greatest animated films of all time, Totoro is a deceptively simple tale of two young sisters who move to the country while their mother is sick and encounter a magical woodland spirit that the younger girl calls a “totoro.” Interestingly, this made-up word derives from European fairy tales about trolls (“toruru” in Japanese); however, Totoro is far from troll-like.

A large fuzzy creature who seems to be a mixture of owl, cat, and badger, Totoro embodies a particularly benign form of nostalgic animism, appearing when the children are lonely or in need and associated with such natural elements as the wind, the earth, and plants. Japanese audiences saw in it a vision of a lost and highly nostalgic recent past but when the film was first released in America, movie reviewer Roger Ebert in an otherwise ecstatic review felt the need to warn his audience that the film contains “no villains, no evil adults, no fight scenes … no scary monsters” (Ebert 1993). Indeed, very little action happens except for a poignant and painful scene where Mei, the younger sister, gets lost, and her older sister turns to Totoro for help. Very much a wonder tale, Totoro’s miracles are gentle and often almost literally organic—a garden grows during a single night, Totoro takes the girls flying on the wind, and a pair of headlights on a rainy night metamorphose into a giant “cat bus.” Totoro concludes in a vision of restoration rather than change, an invocation of Kawai’s “situation of nothing.” But it leaves behind an enchanting yet subtle vision of the wonders of the natural environment and a world still unsullied by economic and industrial development.

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