[merylsilverburg]

Just saw the film yesterday (JP DVD release) and here's my thoughts:

I like it but I don't love it. It's not because it's not epic or grand like the other Ghibli works but because the story seemed weak and underdeveloped and rushed...there also seemed to be subliminal messages about nature and man and destruction throughout the entire film (more on that later).

The characters are very cute which led to funny and some heartwarming moments but the characters themselves seem very one-dimensional. I think the best parts of the film came from the "newborn awe" that Ponyo exhibited as a human. Think of Disney's "The Little Mermaid" when Ariel came across the fork at dinner but a million times improved. Ponyo's displays came off very real, very raw so it was touching. But as personalities themselves, the characters just seemed bland to me which is unfortunate. Their innocence and childlike natures are very present but nothing more.

The story and overall film had that feeling of trying to recapture the magic and childhood fantasies, like in "My Neighbor Totoro." However, there wasn't enough of that "magic" for me to feel like, well, it was magical or fantastical. It was very disappointing because I was waiting for that moment when I felt in my heart that surge of childlike excitement but it never came, except in certain moments but it wasn't as powerful or enough. Those moments were merely "Oh, I am seeing something mystifying happen" but I never feel it.

As for the subliminal messages, okay, perhaps I am thinking too deep into the film - a film intended solely as a children's film for children thus explaining why it's so simple - but it seemed the story was very choppy and rushed because there was no real plot. Instead, the story of Sousuke and Ponyo were merely backdrops to the actual message about ocean preservation and nature vs human. Yes, it had the whole "Little Mermaid" background of Ponyo wanting to be a human and a very traditional "true love" fairytale story but these are not very developed and gets lost when you see all imagery of the ancient "fishes" and animals and super clear and clean water during Sousuke and Ponyo's search - especially when you think about the scene where Ponyo gets swept up in the net cleaning all the garbage and filth in the ocean.

***SPOILERS!!!***



The eco-messages in the film came at the moments mentioned above but it's also furthered when you think about the characters in the film too.

Fujimoto - one of the most likeable, goofiest "villains" - represents a conservationalist. He was a human once but probably due to some love for the water (we will never know since the guy was never developed other than being Ponyo's dad; however, I wonder if they based him off of the old Japanese folktale of Urashima Taro, except he never left the ocean to return to land?) he married Ponyo's mom and became a scientist-wizard living in the water. He creates an elixir that will destroy the world, giving way to another Cambrian Age "rebirth". Okay, so he wants to revert the earth back to the time when organisms first developed invertebrates so that perhaps he can control the evolutionary timescale so that humans never came to be? Or that aquatic creatures will rule? Or that there'll be more humans like himself or Ponyo? Because he loves the ocean so much and can't stand how humans are destroying and tainting it (once the elixir got accidentally released by Ponyo, we see how the world transformed into the prehistoric age...the time of purity and "newness.").

Ponyo's mom, Grande Mamare, represents the "humans" in that she understands they are needed to despite their destructive ways. Sousuke and Ponyo thus represent the balance between nature and humans, working and being together to bring harmony. Because, as we've seen, too much nature (the result of Fujimoto's elixir) isn't a good thing while the humans (the garbage in the water) isn't either. Each has to respect one another for harmony's sake.

Again, it seemed to me that this was the central message of the story. Perhaps that's the point: for kids, it's the happy fairytale while for adults, it's the eco-message. But the fairytale wasn't as predominant so I couldn't help but feel annoyed that the latter was most important to Miyazaki.

It was a good film overall but not memorable for me.