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Ponyo is a hard film to summarize.
“Ponyo” is written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki one of the most successful and well loved animated filmmakers in Japan. In fact, he is often referred to as the “Japanese Walt Disney”.
SideNote: Here’s some interesting if not ironic trivia; Melissa Matheson, the writer of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), wrote the English translation script for the American version produced by …wait for it… Walt Disney Pictures!
Anyway, his latest is “Ponyo” which tells the story about a rather odd friendship between a young goldfish girl and a human boy named Sosuke, who lives in a house on a cliff by the sea.
When the goldfish is stranded on the shore, Sosuke rescues her, names her Ponyo, and promises to look out for her forever.
Ponyo and Sosuke build up a fast and strong bond and he carries her around in his little green pail.
Ahh, sounds like a sweet story doesn’t it? But like any good “Disney” movie there has to be some G rated peril in the works. Yup, the goldfish/girl's father, (who looks like a cross between Michael Jackson and Johnny Depp) an odd man who monitors the balance of life in the sea, comes to get her and take her back home.
Now while he hates the humans who pollute the ocean I never found him to be evil or anything he's actually a pretty okay guy. He's just sort of overprotective and maybe has some anger control problems.
Sosuke is crushed and devastated by the loss of his friend, but so is Ponyo, who is determined to make herself a human and find her Sosuke again.Now here's where we get into the Japanese, after tasting a drop of Sosuke's blood, Ponyo begins to change and, voila, Ponyo turns from fish to chicken and, eventually, into a human girl.
Ponyo’s father then orders the Wave Spirits to bring Ponyo home, throwing the natural world into a state of imbalance.
They say the story is inspired from Hans Christen Anderson’s “The Little Mermaid,” See some of the similarities? Yeah me either at first.
Okay let me break it down for ya:
1.)both fish girls want to be human,
2.)both fish girls have red hair,
3.)both have a bunch of sisters,
4.)both fathers rule the ocean and seem mean at first but are really just loving.
5.)both have fathers that are mad at humans because they pollute the ocean and
6.)both stories involve magic of some sort or another.
That having been said don’t go expecting singing princesses and Disneyfied sugary sweetness.
As an adult watching this film I was often left shaking my head at some of the weird plot details; sometimes you just have to go with it and not think about things too much I suppose.
Luckily for Miyazaki little kids roll with stuff that often doesn’t make complete sense, is strange, bizarre and just plain ol’ cooky most of the time.
That’s not to say that I didn’t like “Ponyo”either. Let’s put it this way- it's “a very Japanese movie”, with nicely illustrated slices of life in a quaint sea town.
In fact, my favorite parts of the movie were the scenes showing the characters just doing ordinary, everyday things like food shopping and preparing dinner.
No doubt, Miyazaki is a great animator, and with “Ponyo” we are reminded that he is also a great children’s storyteller. I loved, loved, loved "Kiki's Delivery Service."
Some have said Hayao Miyazaki's work is strange; the stories he tells are not packaged up and tied with a nice, neat little bow, as many of us in the US are used to. And they don't always go down appropriate paths- I mean c’mon think about it -a romance between two 5-year-olds?!
But let’s be honest, we should all know what we’re getting into, isn’t there's a certain amount of weirdness to be expected from any anime film. Even though it probably lost something in the translation, one thing is universal whether it be in US or Japan in every animated kid movie the whole thing ends happily ever after.
It has to, right?
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Posted by oxyjen on Sep 18, 2009 |
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