I went into the press-screening of Ponyo with high hopes. I’ve rarely enjoyed a children’s film since I stopped being a stupid, stupid child, but I had genuinely appreciated both Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke (Hayao Miyazaki’s most successful exports to the western market), without having to prefix any compliments with: “Well, for a kids’ film…”. Some very pleasant imagery aside, however, Studio Ghibli’s latest offering (a re-telling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid) lacks the “magic” that its discerning and totally cultured fans will tell you abounded in previous efforts. Often hailed by true aesthetes and modern-day geniuses as “the thinking child’s Disney”, Ponyo will do little to convince the unconverted of Ghibli’s alleged brilliance. And that’s the problem: Miyazaki has become so mythologised in western culture that this film, for all intents and purposes an overly familiar, Pixar-style foray into moral conservatism (in terms of the narrative), will not attract the criticism it perhaps deserves.
Ghibli are resting on their laurels here. The script is laughably weak at times, causing one to wonder how, when a lot of money has clearly been spent on rather high-profile voice-acting (Liam Neeson is the main offender here: “Ah yes! I can feel the power of the entire ocean coursing through my DNA!”), that the lost-in-translation kinks were overlooked. Though it might represent the ideal day out for the bohemian family (pro-environmental sentiment abounds throughout), Ponyo feels like a commercial cop-out. It is a shame that such striking visual beauty (and the animation is excellent) is met with such unoriginal subject matter. The queue of adults so emotionally pure and sincere as to really “get” this film (“coz it’s Japanese and they’re well spiritual”) is bound to be long, so book ahead if you want it to “really speak to you” before anyone else.
Words: Oisín Murphy
