Miyazaki Madness, Part 11: "Ponyo", Ponyo, Little Fishy in the Sea
Or "Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea" as Ghibli officials calls it
On Thursdays, I’m publishing reviews of classic movies, including pieces that have never appeared online before taken from my book 200 Reviews, available now in Paperback or on Kindle (which you should really consider buying, because it’s an awesome collection!). In this series, we are examining the filmography of my all-time favorite movie director - and newly minted two-time Oscar winner with his win for The Boy and the Heron - Hayao Miyazaki! We will be looking at all of his theatrical feature films along with the movies he wrote but did not direct, for a total of 15 weeks of Miyazaki Madness! The series continues today with the stunningly beautiful Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. Enjoy…
Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea
2008, Dir. Hayao Miyazaki
Originally published August 14th, 2009, for The Denver Post’s YourHub, Online
Children’s movies are at their best when both kids and adults can enjoy them equally, or at least with similar intensity, finding new layers of enjoyment as they get older. This is not uncommon in the world of family entertainment, but it is rare indeed for a film aimed directly at children to transcend this notion, working so beautifully that it makes the adults in the audience feel like children once more. That is the mark of a true masterpiece.
Legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki has arguably never made a film that could not be described with that word: My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away, to name but a few. His latest work, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (released in the United States just as Ponyo), is a return to the director’s earlier years of light, fun children’s entertainment, but adults will enjoy it just as much as the little ones. The film operates outside any strict age line, and is, like many of its predecessors, a true masterpiece of modern animation.
Since Miyazaki is one of my favorite filmmakers, I would have seen this movie even if I had to drive fifty long miles, but unlike his previous works, Ponyo has been given a wide release in the United States, with a much larger marketing campaign to boot. I have tried not to watch any of the trailers or read a plot synopsis, however, because I wanted to go in cold, allowing the movie to tell me about itself without outside interference. That is definitely the best way to see Ponyo, for though this is a simple story, the film offers a tremendous sense of discovery. It centers around a young boy and a rambunctious fish that wants to become a real human girl, and that is all you need to know for now; I dare not divulge any more.
Returning to a storytelling style similar to Totoro, Ponyo is not heavy on plot. The story is largely a vehicle to let the characters to interact and have fun, a valuable trait all too rare in modern movies. Unlike Howl’s Moving Castle, Miyazaki’s last film, and one that perhaps embraced a too-convoluted plot, Ponyo is a simple, delightful journey that the youngest of children can enjoy on instinctual, emotional levels. The film is always creative, often touching, and downright endearing from start to finish, and viewers of all ages shall appreciate those qualities. Adult audience members shall think on their youth, and reflect on deeper issues of love, environmentalism, and loneliness embedded in the film’s subtext, but for the most part, Ponyo is simply magical, more an experience than a conventional ‘movie.’
As far as the visuals go, I am not sure if my eyes have ever been this happy in a movie theater before. I consider myself an animation junkie, and oh how I have longed to see a traditionally hand-drawn and painted film on the big screen. In the age of CGI, films like this are nearly impossible to come by. Suffice it to say, the animation is astounding. Utilizing an art style unlike anything he has ever done before, Miyazaki’s backgrounds appear to be torn from the world’s greatest and most lavish storybook, one made of beautiful watercolor imagery. The characters themselves are highly stylized, and I do not believe a single straight line or 90-degree angle appears in the film. The general design is very wavy and curvy, but with incredible artistic precision and clarity. Every frame of this movie could be a painting in an art museum, and that is before I even mention the wondrous use of color, with crayons, colored pencils, and watercolors employed on the backgrounds, and bold-but-gentle pastels used on the characters. On a purely visual level, Ponyo is an absolute work of art.
Joe Hisaishi, the composer whose music narrates all of Miyazaki’s works, delivers expectedly strong work once again, a little more grandiose and inventive than anything he has ever done before. The music sounds reminiscent of Tchaikovsky, or other great classical composers. In fact, long dialogue-free stretches of the film remind me of Fantasia, such is the power of Hisaishi and Miyazaki’s union of sound and visuals.
Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea is a near-perfect movie, another winner from Miyazaki that put me under its spell for 100 fabulous minutes without once letting go. Easily one of the year’s best films, Ponyo can (and should) be enjoyed by people of all ages, from 5 to 85 and beyond. For the first time, a Miyazaki film is getting a wide release in this country, and I hope America embraces it; this is everything animation should be and more, the kind of children’s masterpiece modern American audiences are largely unaccustomed to.
NEXT WEEK: Miyazaki interprets a classic children’s story with the outstanding Arrietty the Borrower…
All Miyazaki Madness Pieces:
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