Movie Blog Post: Ponyo
During the last weeks GMU Anime Club meeting, We had a special night where we watched 3 films by Hayao Miyazaki. From watching such films I noticed that Miyazaki’s films oftentimes seem to require a lot of suspention of disbelief, moreso than other animations. Typically it seems as if Miyazaki wants the viewer to just accept whats going on rather than actually attempting to explain any background info on the worlds he creates. While such a practice does cut out a lot of exposition that could interfere with the pacing of the plot, it can also make the events of the film very confusing. In no film is this more evident than in Mayazaki’s most recent film, Ponyo.
Ponyo is about what seems to be fish, who befriends a 5 year old boy and wishes to become human and stay with him. The plot resmbles that of Hans Christen Anderson’s the Little Mermaid in this regard, though that is where the similarities also end. Ponyo is not an ordinary Fish however as Ponyo has magic powers. When Ponyo tastes the blood of the 5 year old boy she gains the ability to turn into a human. Unfortunatley by doing this Ponyo will cause the moon to slowly head towards earth causing massive flooding. Unfortunatley the movie never explains why the world will end because Ponyo turned human. Ponyo’s father a red headed man wants to keep her as a fish to prevent this from happening, while her mother a sea goddess wants her to be happy. This is also not very well explained but because the mother is a sea goddess it isn’t entirely implausable and it does explain why Ponyo is special. Aparrently the only way to stop the end of the world is to have Ponyo give up her magic powers and remain human. Unfortunatley if she does this she will turn into bubbles if the 5 year old boy does not stay faithful to her. This is probably the biggest flaw in the story and pretty much every person in the room seemed to agree that it is rather ridiculous to expect a 5 year old child to make a decision to pair up with Ponyo for life. Depite such illogical moments however the film is very imaginative and is quite interesting to watch, it just doesn’t always make sense.
Ian, I enjoy watching claymation. Although gruesome, I always found MTV’s use of claymation in Celebrity Death Match interesting. The use of clay adds a whole new dimension to the world of animation. Additionally, I appreciate how animation interweaves music and vice versa. Some animation interweaves music to such an extent that without music the storyline of the animation would not make sense. It is nice to watch adaptations of popular stories. Many have recreated the story of the three little pigs. Some adaptations are more enjoyable than others. I must admit Green Jello’s rocked out adult version of the tale is one of the most interesting adaptations I have seen. The clay characters literally add a dimension to the story that isn’t present in flat animation.