MY FAVOURITE FILMS FROM HAYAO MIYAZAKI

(this article contains spoilers)

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the release of “Howl’s Moving Castle”, and to celebrate, it was brought back to some theatres. When I watched it, as it usually happens to me, I got that Ghibli nostalgia and I spent the whole week watching and reliving all my favourite Miyazaki films, here they are:

My Neighbor Totoro

• My Neighbor Totoro (1988): This may be my favourite movie on the list. Many people say it’s the most childish and I agree, maybe I like it because it appeals to my inner child. It’s a feeling of tenderness and sadness because you see life from the girls’ point of view. Everything is beauty and imagination, escaping from reality, which is that they are living a very hard situation. They've moved to a new place so they can be closer to their mother, who is very sick in the hospital without being able to return home. There is a theory that Totoro is a Shinigami (a God of death) that only people who are close to death can see. Also, at the beginning of the movie, the neighbor’s grandmother tells them that she could also see dust bunnies as a child, but she had stopped seeing them once she grew up. This would help us understand, that there are things that only children can see, things that when you are an adult you stop perceiving. According to this theory, when May's sandal appears, it is because she has drowned and Satsuki refuses to accept the reality and says that it is not her sister's sandal, when it clearly is. After that, she goes to Totoro and asks him to take her to her sister. When the cat bus picks up Satsuki, the stops that appear before May are: the cemetery and the swamp and at the end the mother (who is very sick/close to death) says that she thinks she saw the girls. Let everyone draw their own conclusions…

Princess Mononoke

• Princess Mononoke (1997): If 'My Neighbor Totoro' is the most childish film on the list, Princess Mononoke is probably the one that conveys a more adult and modern message. This film tells us how humans pervert nature to benefit at their own expense, regardless of how it affects mother nature. We modify our environment, but then we are unable to accept the fact that nature turns against us. The soundtrack is breathtaking, as in all the films on the list, really.

Spirited Away

• Spirited Away (2001): Who hasn’t cried watching this movie? It has all the elements we usually see in Miyazaki’s films multiplied by 1000, I'd say it’s Miyazaki in its purest form. All the fantasy, the innocence of childhood shattered by trauma, the magical creatures… It’s pure fantasy. The beginning of ‘Spirited Away’ is one of the most memorable that I remember. When they arrive in the village and Chihiro’s parents start eating all that delicious food (that we would all like to try) and then turn into pigs... just wow.

Howl's Moving Castle

• Howl's Moving Castle (2004): The first movie that I watched on this list and the one that made me so nostalgic that I was forced to do the ultimate marathon. This story of a hatter who is cursed into an adorable old lady who makes an adorable scarecrow friend and meets an adorable boy wizard… not to mention Howl, I was in love with Howl as a kid. Everything about this movie makes me nostalgic… the soundtrack, the sets, the characters, everything. 

I have to make a special mention, a film that I've been meaning to watch again: ‘Grave of the Fireflies’ by Isao Takahata, the other founder of Studio Ghibli, which tells us the other side of World War II. It’s super sad, so if you dare to watch it, be prepared to cry like there’s no tomorrow.

I could go on with this list forever because they are all amazing, but these are the ones that have always left the biggest mark on me and if you have never entered the Ghibli world, you already have a place to start.