BY COLIN ENQUIST
Hayao Miyazaki is a legend in Japanese cinema. He has even seen some mild success over in North America with Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle. The latest animated adventure from the mind of Miyazaki took Japan by storm in 2008, winning several awards, including the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year. Studio Ghibli brings Ponyo to the American shore with the help of Walt Disney Pictures, John Lasseter and a stellar voice cast of Cate Blanchett, Noah Cyrus, Matt Damon, Frankie Jonas, Tina Fey and Liam Neeson.At the heart of the film is Sōsuke, a mature 5 years old, who finds a goldfish in the sea which he dubs Ponyo. It turns out Ponyo is not a normal fish. Quickly Ponyo and Sōsuke form a friendship. Ponyo decides that she wants to become a real girl. The transformation of Ponyo happens early in the film but Ponyo does not understand (and neither do we) the forces she has unleased upon the world. This is truly where the adventure begins.
Miyazaki and his team of artists bring us into a very magical world. The water colour-esque artistry used for the backdrop is absolutely stunning. This is one thing that animted CGI films lack. With the animators putting so much focus on the CGI characters (and these characters usually look fantastic) the backdrops suffer and don’t visually pop with emotion like a hand drawn film does. Obviously some exceptions do come along but for the most part I will take the animation of Ponyo over something done on a computer (I am not saying computer animators do not work hard, just stating my preferance).
Ponyo follows along the usual Miyazaki themes. Like most of his other films, enviromentilsm is the most prominent. The characters are shown gazing at the beauty of the sea that surrounds them. Out of sight, out of mind, they do not realize the pollution under the surface. Only admiring the beauty of what can be seen, ignoring the truth. They must understand it to some extant though, as I have never witnessed a film show so prominently a character repeatedly shutting off the lights after he (or she) leaves a room.
A few things did bother me. One being the love story told about two 5 year olds seemed a little far fetched. It was not the love aspect but rather the depth and understanding Sōsuke and Ponyo seemed to have of love.
The audience is suppose to take everything in this film at face value. Never giving us many reasons of why the sea got angry. Some of these questions could have been cut out of the North American release of the film. Many times imports lose a few scenes due to translation problems and I am hoping that is the case and the DVD version will have a subtitled version of the film along with the English dubbing.
Miyazaki’s newest film may not be his best and is probably his weakest endevour that I have seen but it is a very artistic tale about innocence and love. You may want to wait for a subtitled version (I am under the assumption that it would be better because they normally are) even though the new voice cast does extremely well. I would not tell you to skip this film, I actually recommend seeing it, but there is no need to rush out and see it like I did.
3 out of 5
