CLEMENTINE'S REVIEWS

22nd September 2009
Ponyo On A Cliff By The Sea (2008)

Director:   Hayao Miyazaki
Writer:      Hayao Miyazaki
Starring:   (voices) Yuri Nara, Hiroki Doi, Jôji Tokoro, Yuki Amami, Kazushige Nagashima, Akiko Yano

Super kawaii!

Ponyo is a delightful animated film about a young inquisitive goldfish princess who meets the sweet young Sosuke playing by the sea side. Sosuke saves the goldfish from some debris and names her Ponyo, believing her to be magic. Indeed Ponyo does possess wondrous powers and after falling for Sosuke all she wants is to become human. Based on The Little Mermaid, Miyazaki was inspired to create his own version after watching the Disney adaptation - and in his signature style the film becomes a truly sweet and inspirational adventure about friendship, family, and love.

Those expecting the visual feast of the last huge Studio Ghibli production Howl's Moving Castle will be a little disappointed. Ponyo heralds back to the charming simplicity of Totoro - clean, sweet, fantastic in the everyday sense of childhood wonder. The film itself is a real pearl which doesn't need any fancier production. A great affection for his family has Miyazaki creating characters in their likeness - young Sosuke is based on his own son at five, and the cranky senior Toki is a representation of his mother.

Miyazaki uses a lighter hand to create dialogue about the negative impacts of humans on the environment than as his previous efforts like Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke - he brings it down to a simple undertone for the apparently younger target audience. Not that this isn't a film to delight all ages - our screening had only one child and everyone was rapturous from opening til happily chattering as they exited the cinema.

The weirdness, the spirit of the sea, the acceptance of strange happenings, the serene beauty of the flooding in the town, each wonder allows us to be a child again and have anything possible happen.

Verdict: I was engulfed in the magic of Ponyo like a giant fish-wave swallowing me whole!

Read Alaris' review of Ponyo On A Cliff By The Sea (2008).