Ponyo – Review

Within the first handful of minutes, when we witness a wordless opening to the film, on the bottom of the ocean, with Fujimoto (Lim Neelson) organizing the creatures of the sea, that elusive and easily thrown around word, art, appears in our heads. Art is easily used and often unjustified, but recognizing the absolute insanity of animating on hand drawn cells by Hayao Miyazaki, art is the only word that should be used. Ponyo is expertly crafted. It’s sense of wonder and imagination cannot be rivaled. It’s not without it’s flaws, but on a pure technical level, it flawless.

Ponyo is a bit of an odd beast. While it has the reoccurring themes Miyazaki loves to use and reuse, children and childhood, environmentalism, it tackles love, real love that most mature people haven’t fully experienced between five year olds. It’s just a weird angle to hinge most of the drama and the climax on, and while it features a rather limp finale, Miyazaki riddles us with his incredible imagination, making most of what I’ve said mute. He claimed that with this picture he wanted to tackle water and its characteristics as naturalistic as possible. The film used the most cells ever for a Miyazaki film, and the extras time and effort pays off tenfold. Just to think the water, the shadows, and the color are all hand drawn, really puts to shame most current CG animated fare. No wonder why he has been the only animator to win an Oscar of Pixar.

It’s kind of funny how simple the film really is, but how effective it is. Ponyo captures the wide-eye innocence of children first rate, as everything feels like we’re witnessing it through their eyes. The film’s pacing acts like a rambunctious five year old anyway, breezily going to and fro. It doesn’t outdo previous Miyazaki efforts like Spirited Away or Howl’s Moving Castle, but that’s okay. When an artist is so great, we don’t define his next piece in comparison to his best, but as an old storyteller giving us another tale to enjoy. Ponyo‘s Americanized voice acting does hamper some of the dialogue into corniness, but it still doesn’t detract away from some of the best hand drawn animation we’ve seen in a long, long time. Ponyo is absolutely pleasing, transcending its anime origins to be appreciated by all.

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