My Neighbor Totoro

Part of Listening to Film: See the full film series.

Screening preceded by a discussion of the film’s sound design by Colby students in MU237A (Film Music and Sound). Free admission, thanks to sponsorship from Colby’s Music Department, Department of Cinema Studies and The Center for the Arts and Humanities.

This beloved collaboration between director Hayao Miyazaki and composer Joe Hisaishi explores themes of childhood and nostalgia. As their mother recuperates from an illness, sisters Satsuki and Mei move to the Japanese countryside with their father, where they encounter the fantastical Totoros. The film’s loving attention to realistic detail of the girls’ daily lives, combined with its easy slippage into the fantastical, suggests that the border between real and magical worlds is one that only children can cross. Hisaishi’s score develops these themes, blending elements of Japanese children’s songs, popular music, orchestral and electronic film music, and American minimalism, as well as embracing the composer’s own signature sounds.