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Ponyo

Many films end with two very definitive words: The End. At least they once did. “The End” is no longer in vogue and a good thing too. Such dramatic closure is often unfit for most movies, and corrupts our notion of the characters’ lives continuing and developing well past the closing credits. Even Casablanca finishes with those two closing words; I was under the impression that it was supposed to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Ponyo, the new film by the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, does not contain the word “end.” Instead, at the start of the film, Miyazaki gives us the caption: The Beginning. At first I thought this was a subtle joke by Miyazaki, considering that this is the man who has announced his retirement after his last three films, but soon realized that the film is about new beginnings, and the experience of watching it is akin to a rebirth. Miyazaki has crafted a piece of art that is so pure and innocent that while I was watching Ponyo every malevolent thought and action in my life was evaporated and all that remained was the pure optimism and hope of a beginning.

The eponymous character is a humanoid fish, I suppose. One of the wonderful delights in the mythology that Miyazaki has created in this film is that hardly anything is explained. Ponyo’s father, Fujimoto (the voice of Liam Neeson), used to be human but now lives in the sea, guarding and using the magical elixirs that balance the forces of nature. Ponyo’s mother, Gran Mamare (Cate Blanchett), is a beautiful, mystical giantess who glides through the waters. Ponyo (Noah Cyrus) appears to be their eldest daughter and after her there are hundreds of tinier humanoid fish, who look like Ponyo, except with underdeveloped faces. That’s about all of the explanation we get concerning the undersea world. The images are so vibrant and the tone is so lilting that tidy explanations seem perfunctory. After all, background mythology really only obscures the material and condescends. Take Tolkien’s The Silmarillion or all of the excess material revolving around the Star Wars franchise, including the prequels. Those works are supposed to enhance one’s appreciation of the main work, being the original Star Wars films or The Lord of the Rings, but instead lessens one’s appreciation for those works because the universe in which the characters resides becomes more important and complicated than the characters’ emotional and psychical journeys, which appear more simple as their surrounding universe expands. Detailed descriptions of undersea mysticism are less important to Miyazaki than the deeply emotional and subtly profound relationship between Ponyo and Sosuke.

Sosuke (Frankie Jonas) is a five-year old human boy who lives with his mother in a house on a hill. He finds Ponyo, as a goldfish, trapped in a jar. He immediately has a connection with this strange looking fish, and vows to care for her. He protects her and feeds her ham, which begins an insatiable addiction to pork, and truly loves her. Ponyo, as a goldfish, provides instant karma both to a vain little girl and a cynical old woman. She squirts water in both of their faces, causing physical and psychological damage, respectively.  Those two incidents map out the course of a human life. The obnoxiously intrusive little girl who bothers Sosuke at school will one day become, more or less, like the cynical old woman, Toki (Lily Tomlin), who lives at the geriatric home where Sosuke’s mother, Lisa (Tiny Fey), works.

Lisa is an incredible woman. She’s smart, attractive and attentive. In most films about young children the parents are often portrayed as cynical and stupid because they are not as naïve or innocent as their child, including Miyazaki’s own Spirited Away, where the oblivious, gluttonous parents are literally transformed into pigs. Lisa is fearless and open-minded. Bravely, she drives her car through a tsunami-like storm, and when she discovers that Ponyo the goldfish has transformed into a human girl she bypasses the standard routine of denial and immediately explains to Ponyo and Sosuke that, “life is mysterious and amazing.” Fujimoto is the antithesis of Lisa. Ponyo alludes to her father as an evil wizard who hates humans. Fujimoto is not shy about his hatred toward humans, referring to them as “empty, black souls.” He also curses the humans for their lack of environmental consideration (the relationship between mankind and nature is not the main theme of this film as it was in Princess Mononoke, but is prevalent in subtle ways as it was in My Neighbor Totoro). As far as being an evil wizard, Fujimoto is possibly the most inept magician since Mickey donned the sorcerer’s hat in Fantasia. He’s easily insulted and distracted as when Lisa accuses him of using weed killer, and he begins to defend himself instead of rescuing Ponyo. His own daughters routinely thwart his plans to take Ponyo back from Sosuke. Underwater he needs the protection of an air bubble, but on land he has to spray himself with water. The door protecting his elixirs that maintains the balance of nature is broken, and he keeps forgetting to fix it. He can barely get the attention of a group of elderly woman, but then again, his colorful pinstriped suits don’t exactly make a threatening statement. He even wants a return to the Cambrian age. What a human would do during the Cambrian age is beyond my knowledge. His wife is a bit more sensible, relishing the unbalanced state of nature as a return to the Devonian age, the age of fish. Fujimoto an evil wizard? He’s more like a classically trained vaudevillian.

The most beautiful, lyrical, and humorous passages of Ponyo occur when Ponyo is discovering the human world, and when Ponyo and Sosuke travel to look for Sosuke’s mother. Sosuke maintains his bond to protect Ponyo even when his own life appears to be falling apart. He is a wise, perceptible and mature child, which is dutifully acknowledged by his mother. The love between Sosuke and Ponyo is pure and innocent. The first words we hear Ponyo say are “Ponyo loves Sosuke!”

There is a visual grandeur that appropriately matches the emotional landscape of the characters. In his last three films, Miyazaki used the assistance of computers, which was appropriate in creating a sharper-edged look and sense of speed for those more action oriented films. Miyazaki has abandoned all technology and it suits the film fine. There is a rustic, genuine quality to the film. The pastel colors of the film, which are truly magnificent, are able to blend into one another. There is a painterly quality to the animation that is a wonder to behold. The combinations of pinks and blues open new passageways into the mind’s imagination. Miyazaki has crafted yet another masterpiece that is both visually beautiful and emotionally profound, and all I can think to say is…Jason loves Ponyo!

-Jason Bardin

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