#72 My Neighbor Totoro (Miyazaki) at Santa Cruz Cinema
"Keep it simple, stupid" was Weesner's first rule of film making. And this movie works largely because of how simple it is. There is very little in the way of traditional plot, and the film does not seem interested in building toward anything in particular. Instead, it moves through small, quiet moments and lets its world take shape gradually. It's a warm bath. In addition to being simple, My Neighbor Totoro (1988) is strange, funny, and surreal. If the film is about anything, it's about the kind of imaginative space siblings create together, where the boundary between reality and fantasy doesn't exist. Having grown up with a younger sister, that dynamic felt immediately recognizable, and it grounds everything else the film does. Seeing it as part of a Family Film Series (something I’d typically avoid, given my aversion to children) ended up being surprisingly perfect. I expected a theater full of children to be distracting, but instead, their reactions mir...