SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
A whimsical underwater fairy tale, Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo makes for an excellent movie for children, and for adults who will undoubtedly appreciate its lush visuals and vibrant animation.
For the first few moments of Ponyo, director Hayao Miyazaki is content to let us luxuriate in a magnificent and incredibly elaborate underwater opening sequence. We gain the first of many glimpses into an underwater otherworld, with thriving ocean ecosystems, schools of fish and other sea life and in true Studio Ghibli fashion, the oddly charming sight of a wizard hard at work in a bubble of magic, wielding a pipette filled with a mysterious golden liquid, dotting it all around him. It’s an entirely appropriate opening, setting the tone for an effortlessly beautiful fairy tale with a remarkable sense of vitality and spirit that’s sure to please both children and adults alike. Its appeal comes not from a particularly sophisticated story, but from sheer visual magic in its purest form, and I came away with the distinct sense that the close partnership between Miyazaki and his inner child had borne fruit once again.
Depending on who you read, it’s either a very loose adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, or simply inspired by it. Regardless, it puts a distinctly hand-drawn, Japanese twist to the story about a girl born under the sea who longs to become human. After escaping her wizard father Fujimoto, the young goldfish princess Ponyo has a chance encounter with the 5-year-old Sosuke, who rescues her after she becomes trapped inside a glass bottle. Falling in love with Sosuke, she uses powerful magic to transform herself into a little girl, causing a massive imbalance in the natural order. As the moon slowly approaches the Earth and a huge storm wracks the coastlines, the two must find a way to set things right and fulfil Ponyo’s wish to join the human world permanently.
Occasionally, I got the sense that Ponyo was missing a little something. The usual eco-friendly messaging is present as always, but it never feels like the chief concern of the film’s characters. Nor can you find the complex themes and philosophy inherent in Miyazaki’s other works like Spirited Away; rather he serves up a fairly simplistic yarn that won’t exactly have adults or young children, who are this film’s main target audience, scratching their heads. But I hasten to add that clearly not every film is designed to kickstart philosophical debate, even if this film could use just a tad more substance. Ponyo is children’s entertainment, and excels at being just that within the confines of this particular genre. It has strong, realistic characters who work to endear themselves to the audience, and a magical world where just about anything can happen. In contrast to other Studio Ghibli films, the stakes are fairly low and the central conflict somewhat muted, but despite that, it becomes difficult to hold any of its flaws against it.
It doesn’t fail to deliver an absolute deluge of visual creativity. Ponyo is simply a joy to watch. Miyazaki reportedly shut down Studio Ghibli’s computer animation section in order to prioritise hand-drawn work, and it shows. Maybe I’m just getting too old, but I find that there’s something unique about hand-drawn animation that the plastic CG models of many modern animated films simply fail to capture. Ponyo’s breathtaking sequences are proof of that. I mentioned the spectacular opening sequence already, but in a film that lasts nearly two hours, there’s only about thirty seconds tops where nothing exciting is happening on screen. From the colour-pencil backdrops of a peaceful coastal town to bustling underwater realms teeming with prehistoric fish and jellies, Ponyo delivers again and again almost without fail. The animation feels almost liquid, flowing organically and beautifully from one frame to the next. Accompanying all this is a stirring, even operatic orchestral score from Joe Hisaishi, which makes even a simple sequence like Sosuke and his mother Lisa driving to school exciting. It’s best described as a kind of visual chaos, but as we know, almost every frame is secretly, and barely, under control. It’s an art to create an illusion of chaos while also ensuring there’s some method to the madness that goes mostly unseen, but it’s absolutely nailed here.
Even if it’s not Miyazaki’s best or most sophisticated piece of work, it becomes genuinely difficult to hold much against it. It’s an absolutely charming work of art and once again, you can’t help but admire and appreciate the passion and imagination that’s gone into it. Even if it is aimed at kids, it won’t fail to entertain accompanying adults either, which is more than you can say for a surprising number of children’s movies. Parents suffering through their kids’ movies is almost a stereotype. That’s not the case with Ponyo. It’s utterly delightful.
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