När naturen leker : hur barnets relation till naturen framställs i filmen ”Granne med Totoro”

Abstract: The landscape architect is similar to the moviemaker in that they both want to mediate an experience with their creations. The landscape architect designs playgrounds and the moviemaker makes movies for children, but how does the relationship between children and nature look like in the landscape formed by the movie maker’s fantasy? The purpose with this thesis is to study how the relationship between child and nature is depicted in a movie as a medium, by analysing ”My neighbour Totoro”, a Japanese animated movie from 1988 by Hayao Miyazaki. The analysis consists of two combined analyses, Experiential Landscape Analysis and Gordon Cullen’s Serial Vision, both of which analyse the relationship between a human being and her environment as well as the emotional changes that occur as she moves in it. Serial Vision has been used to find the scene sequence, where an interaction between the children and the nature occurs. The scene sequences have then been analysed with the Experiential Landscape Analysis.These scenes are when the children, the central figures of the movie, Mei and Satsuki, interact with nature. The result of the analysis shows that the relationship between the children and nature consists of different kinds of relationships, but that there is equality and a sense of belonging, which impregnate all of them. The nature sees the children as a part of itself and the children sees nature as their friend.