Commentary 18 Aug 2009 07:55 am
Go See Ponyo
- So let me spill some thoughts on Miyazaki‘s Ponyo.
I’ve already stated that I think this is the Best Picture of 2009 – to date. Nothing else has stirred my imagination, my sense of hope or my belief in the medium as this film has.
There were no lackluster set pieces in the way of most Western animation. The story was built from the respect for the human spirit and its intermingling with the earth and sea around it.
There were no traditional filmmaking formulas; this film created its own rules. We’re in the hands of a master who knows all the rules and knows when and how to break them.
There was no irony, cynicism or sarcasm in the way of telling the story (as we find in most of the other children’s films these days.) Ponyo is glorious, life affirming, a real treat as a moviegoing experience. Before the film was over, I was making plans to see it again.
Yes, the story is dense and sometimes confusing. There’s a lot of back story we’re not privy to. And like all other Miyazaki films, there’s a lot we don’t get as Westerners. He has a cultural separation that he honors and places high in his order of business. Gods and spirits and magic, all incomprehensible to us, abound in his films, and we are forced to accept it and ride with it or be left behind.
We saw this in Princess Mononoke with at least half of the characters – white wolves, dying deteriorating swine, a supreme god of a deer with blazing antlers.
We saw this in Spirited Away (just that title) with all of those curous subsidiary characters that walk or float their way through the film guiding its heroine.
In My Neighbor Totoro, there’s Totoro, itself.
Ponyo takes its spirits to the sea. It’ll be hard to look at the ocean again without thinking of Miyazaki’s interpretation of the living, breathing water. It hasn’t been animated like this before, and we haven’t seen such a screen incarnation of it. All those undersea creatures: from the prehistoric fish to the dark minions riding the waves to the dozens of guppy-like sisters of Ponyo. They’re all wondrous.
The film is a 2D experience, and it was purposefully crafted as such. Elements that would have so easily been done in cgi were drawn and animated by hand. Ripples and underwater movement were all done in the animation rather than with an effect.
The backgrounds are attractive watercolor paintings, very distinct and different from other recent stylizations. The gorgeous backgrounds of Lilo and Stitch used watercolors in a very open and clean style. In Ponyo there’s a busy-ness that’s also attractive; it’s certainly preferable to me over the style of other recent Miyazaki films – much more tactile. The change from the usual opaque flat colors to aqueous translucent ones works well with this story.
The animation is, I think, better than recent Miyazaki films. Yes, some of it’s on three’s but other parts are on ones. None of this matters since it’s what the animation is saying and feeling that counts, and it’s doing a lot of both. There are no tics and cliches to be found; everything is new to us. The animation here is completely subservient to the film’s broader themes, and it’s a real treat.
The sequence where Ponyo runs on top of the waves of water in a race with the auto on the shore could not be any greater. I just sat there with my mouth open totally in tune with the film and completely enchanted with the graphics themselves. Animation, Background, effects and cutting all played harmoniously and together. It was an absolute delight.
The English voiceover dubbing was hit and miss. I have the suspicion that the actors were directed to underplay their emotions so that they’d sound more “Japanese” – in tune with the original. When you’re working with Liam Neeson or Cate Blanchett (who gives an interesting lilting accent – slightly Eastern European), their interpretations make this strategy work. 
However, Tina Fey (who is a better comedian and writer than actress) comes up with what seems a careless, non-caring mother who just is not very likeable. The kids are kids and their voices are totally in-sync with the film. Betty White and Lily Tomlin are superb.
I also suspect that the dialogue was altered to try to explain or weaken some of the cultural differences in the story. It’s the only place where cuteness intervenes in the film. I’ll search out a subtitled version of the film on DVD to compare.
The score by Joe Hisaishi was superb. A beautiful orchestral score with full melodies and strong backing of the film. Only the final credit song was horrendous – it literally pushed people out of the theater. Too bad because there was a unique feel in the credits. The title read something akin to “Those who made the film:” and listed everyone’s name bunched together in alphabetical order. Composer, director, producer, animator, colorist; they were all mashed together without categorizing their service to the film.
I’m glad the film was so brilliantly 2D; I’m also glad there was no attempt to add 3D illusions so that I’d have had to gray-down the experience with those wretched glasses. I will see it again before it leaves theaters. The visuals are so dense, this is should be seen on a big screen. The audience attending my screening also loved it.
If you have any interest in animation, you owe it to yourself and the medium to see this film.
Prior to the screening there were a rash of ads for coming animated features and children’s films. They all – ALL – looked weak. Maybe they were just bad trailers.
Planet 51 and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs lead the way and sort of blended together in the mash of trailers.
Planet 51 with Meatballs
The Princess and the Frog looked better, but the animation displayed revealed no character animation, just attitude.
I want to see this film and support it; I hope to be delighted by it but my guard will be up. I’d like Disney to be doing more 2D animation, and the success of this film will have some say in that. The future of properly trained animators is dependent on it.
The Fantastic Mr. Fox looked charming. The clunky stop-motion animation will be a bother for me – I’ll be watching the self-moving fur. I have a feeling they’re using Starewicz as their model. George Clooney’s voice was excellent.
Then of course there’s The Christmas Carol (which couldn’t look uglier – Jim Carrey’s – I mean Scrooge’s arms look like exorbitantly long sticks – very unattractive) with its motion capture problems. I won’t go to the theater for this.
I think I’ll go see Ponyo again.
on 18 Aug 2009 at 9:21 am 1.Richard O'Connor said …
This is not to disparage Ponyo, which I think is a fine piece of work, or Miyazaki, who obviously doesn’t need my acclaim, but people often cite -as you have -an unknown backstory and an unknowable mythology and an everpresent “magic” to his films.
These are just tricks to mask non-rational storytelling. When coded as “myth and magic” it does a disservice to what he is truly doing -ignoring narrative convention. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t.
Compare this to “Up” which has a similar disdain for narrative convention. What’s the difference? Something substantial, I think. “Up” glosses over narrative gaps with conventional gags (perfunctory bad guys and pups in bi-planes).
Both of these films have something very similar at their root -but grow into completely different things.
To me, the animation in “Ponyo” is strong, but the apex of Miyazaki’s work remains when the little girl falls down the long stairwell in “Spirited Away”. I also assume the same hand did the father in this film that was largely responsible for the old lady in “Spirited Away” -that person may be the most gifted animator working today.
An interesting thing I noted -stemming from my recent re-visitation of Karl Cohen’s book and plunge into Tom Sito -the Americans all had titles, the Japanese did not. I am almost certain this is a guild issue. A Hollywood produced film would not be allowed by union contracts to have a “cute” title card like that.
on 18 Aug 2009 at 9:30 am 2.Michael said …
I say “back story” because that’s exactly what it is. We know enough about Ponyo’s father only through little bits of dialogue, yet there could be at least another whole film in his relationship to Ponyo’s mother, but Miyazaki was interested in Ponyo’s story. He barely touched on the adults; they only drive the film’s mechanics. I could also have gone deeper by delving into my thoughts on Miyazaki’s vision of Japan as a matriarchal society (which is also the theme of Shohei Imamura’s films). I just expressed my enthusiasm without turning and digging into the rich bottom soil of the film.
UP followed the same story structure as WALL E. An excellent introduction to the characters with some fine animation character development and little dialogue. Then the films moved south toward inevitable and extended ridiculous chases around spaceships or zeppelins. It didn’t matter whether the character was a 90 year old man or a robot. The chase was the same. Finally the deus ex machina brings us back to a tacked on happy ending.
No such conventions exist in ANY Miyazaki film. There’s more regard for life in his films than there is for tried and true and tired conventional story structure.
I suspect Pixar is making films for boys, and Miyazaki makes films for people – which ends up being categorized as girls.
on 18 Aug 2009 at 12:09 pm 3.Dan Caylor said …
I don’t think I’ve seen such a sparkling review since I started reading your blog Michael. Now I HAVE to go see it
on 18 Aug 2009 at 8:37 pm 4.Scott said …
Your lack of love for the old school stop motion approach to Mr Fox. kind of surprises me Michael, where the imprint of the animator is even more apparent then hand drawn.
Its also the same reason The Wrong Trousers still has all of my W&G love, it still has certain tactility, which Coraline could of had a bit more off.
on 18 Aug 2009 at 9:59 pm 5.Michael said …
For me to like animation, it would have to be good. There was no good animation in any of trailers I’ve seen for Mr. Fox. It looks, as I said, more like Starewicz than Nick Park. The Wrong Trousers features some brilliant animation. I’ll wait to see Mr. Fox, not the trailer, before judging it.
on 19 Aug 2009 at 12:01 pm 6.George Taylor said …
Great review!
I loved that there was no overt villain in the film. I am glad that the trailers were *before* the film, they only served to make Ponyo look even better!
Mr. Fox started to make me seasick!
on 20 Aug 2009 at 8:24 am 7.Dave Levy said …
My problem with the Mr. Fox trailer is that the soundtrack is doing most of the work. It looked as though the filmmakers had taken an Ocean’s 11 (the Clooney version) and animated to it. So, you get a lot of wink-wink delivery of lines that are coming out of stiffly animated fox heads that can barely manage even one expression. A film like Ocean’s 11 is all about the live action actor’s natural charisma and chemistry with each other, but that’s not the mojo that powers an animated film. But, I will reserve my final opinion for when I see the whole film. But, nobody can deny that its exciting to see stop motion getting some attention.
on 25 Aug 2009 at 12:43 pm 8.Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea « Fantazmigoriuh! said …
[...] Ponyo is a beautiful film, there is little doubt about that. Not only was I very impressed with the beautiful watercolour backgrounds, the overall look of the film was fantastic too. Buildings and landscapes compliment each other and the rich and varied colours compliment each other too. Such things I have come to expect from Miyazaki, someone with a particular attention to detail. Anyone in doubt should go an watch Spirited Away (my favourite) the details in the bath house are astonishing to say the least. Ponyo running on the waves [...]
on 28 Aug 2009 at 12:28 pm 9.Pavlovich said …
Like any Myazaki film, it is better than just “Japanese Disney.” The first time I watched it was without subtitles but i was hooked by the beauty of the backgrounds and the wonderfully imaginative characters under the water and the recognizable ones on the surface .
The waves of fish with Ponyo riding the crest/s, as Ponyo jumps from one fish to the next is really great 2D animation, some of the best …
In my opinion “Coraline” is the best of 09, but I certainly think “Ponyo” stands a chance against the likes of “UP” and “Ice Age 3″
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