Film Review - Ponyo (2008)

Fig.1 Ponyo (2008)

Set in present day Japan, Ponyo is a family adventure/fantasy film about a goldfish princess that lives in the sea. The princess escapes her controlling father and visits the human world where she meets a human boy named Sousuke, who gives her the name Ponyo. The film follows their friendship, and as it becomes stronger, Ponyo becomes more human like. However, When her father brings her back to the underwater world, she escapes again, but spills her father’s magical elixirs into the ocean, causing imbalance and danger to Souske’s village. The film explores themes of fantasy, friendship, loyalty, love, acceptance, devotion, and happiness. The film is lighthearted and fun, and is definitely created for a younger audience to enjoy, but can still be enjoyed by older audiences as the story and visuals are so engaging. The film also has an underlying narrative about balancing the mind. Ponyo and her ocean world represent the creative subconscious of the human mind, contrasted by Sosuke and his life on the land, which represents the outer, conscious human mind. This narrative is something that perhaps only older audiences can identify.

Although Studio Ghibli films have used small portions of CG in the past, Ponyo was animated by entirely hand drawn frames. The director of the film, Hayao Miyazaki was heavily involved in the animation process, And drew a decent amount of it himself. There was a lot of experimentation involved in the process, especially when animating the sea waves. In an interview with Collider, he spoke about how he realised he wanted a specific style to animated the waves in. “So the waves weren’t as difficult as I thought they would be. So as I was drawing, I thought, “Well, I should have done this from beginning.” I realised that I should do it like an Ukiyo-e woodblock print, draw them that way.” - Hayao Miyazaki. the film set a new record for Miyazaki’s films with just over 170,000 hand-drawn frames.  The use of 2D hand drawn animation enhances the fantasy film well, not only making it more appealing to children, but making it a beautiful film for people of all ages to watch and enjoy as they can appreciate how much work has gone into making the film so complex and visually appealing.

Fig 2. Ponyo Poster (2010)

Hayaozaki’s films have often been compared to as the Japanese equivalent to Disney, often because the films are often re-released by Walt Disney Studios as English dubbed versions to Western audiences. They have become one of the most famous film studios in Japan, and are well known for having an iconic 2D style. All of Studio Ghibli’s films have a signature style and way of storytelling. Most Ghibli films include fantasy of some kind and just cannot be told through live action. There are too many magical visuals that are showcased so beautifully through Studio Ghibli’s 2D style that wouldn’t translate well if the stories were told through live action films. 

Ponyo was written and directed by Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, and animated by Studio Ghibli,a Japanese animation film studio based in Koganei,Japan. Miyazaki has worked with the same animators for almost his entire career. Miyazaki wanted to create Ponyo as he is commonly known for making films that revolve around the sky, but always wanted to create a film about the sea. 

"I have always dreamed of making a film with the sea as a motif, but animating the waves is really hard, so I wasn’t able to do that up to now. I decided to change the way of animating, and had a change of thought: that the sea is actually a living thing. Of course, it took courage to draw eyes on it! But a lot of the staff thought it was interesting so I thought, ‘Oh, okay, it works!” - Hayao Miyazaki.

He also felt like he hadn’t made a film specifically targeted towards young children in awhile, e.g My Neighbour Totoro. 

“I also thought maybe we’d travelled too far away from children, that we should go back to the five-year-olds. But I can’t go back and make the same innocent ‘Totoro’ kind of film. So I put in more complex things. If you want to make something innocent, a shorter film is better. It’s not a good thing to make something very long for small children.” - Hayao Miyazaki.

The reception of Ponyo was a little mixed, it was received very well by the general public, and achieved worldwide success.It received a 91% “Certified Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and won several awards such as the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year.  It also won five awards at the Tokyo Anime Awards. The awards included "Anime of the Year", “Best Domestic Feature", “Best Director”, “Best Original Story” and “Best Art Direction.” It was originally released across Japan under the title: 'Gake no Ue no' which means; 'Ponyo on the Cliff',on July 19, 2008 in 481 theatres, and achieved $91 million  into it’s first month of release. It was released in Southeast Asia under the name; 'Ponyo On the Cliff by the Sea.' on January 1, 2009, in the United States and Canada on August 14, 2009 by Walt Disney Pictures, it reached 927 theatres across America, which broke the record for the amount of showings a Studio Ghibli film had ever had across America. it was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on February 12, 2010. The film raked in over $201 million worldwide, however, some die hard Ghibli fans felt as though Ponyo wasn’t quite up to par to some of Miyazaki’s previous films.

Bibliography:

Rotten Tomatoes, s.d. Ponyo (2009). At: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ponyo (Accessed on 06.02.19)

Ghibli Culture. (2014) Analysis of Ponyo. At: https://ghibliculture.wordpress.com/2014/04/28/analysis-of-ponyo/

(Accessed on 06.02.19)

Weintraub, S. (2009) Hayao Miyazaki Interview PONYO At: http://collider.com/hayao-miyazaki-interview-ponyo/ (Accessed on 06.02.19)

Jolin, D. (2011) Miyazaki On Miyazaki: The Animation Genius On His Movies At: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/hayao-miyazaki/ (Accessed on 06.02.19)

The Massie Twins, s.d. Ponyo (2008) At:https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0876563/ (Accessed on 06.02.19)

Images:

Figure 1. Ponyo. (2008) From: Ponyo. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki [Film Still] Japan: Studio Ghibli. At: https://www.nytimes.com/watching/titles/ponyo (Accessed on 06.02.19)

Figure 2. Ponyo. (2010) From: Ponyo. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki [Poster] Japan: Studio Ghibli. At: http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRUj7UnYxLXtFeZF0iYaxzgeR-RDidUtR20y9Kl_IblXS0lanr5(Accessed on 06.02.19)