When celebrated Japanese animated filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle) teams up with the Disney people and makes a movie that’s (loosely) based on Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Mermaid,” one might start to wonder if he’s gone all mainstream. But no, Disney’s just the US distributor, and despite appealing to a younger audience than other Miyazaki films, and having English dubbing, this retains much of the appealing strangeness for which he’s known.
Ponyo is a fish who looks like a little white girl with a tail, but the boy who finds her is a Japanese boy living with his mother in a seaside town. Even with dubbing by American bigshots like Tina Fey (as the mother), Matt Damon, Lily Tomlin, and Liam Neeson, the movie retains a distinct Japanese flavor, as well as a style of animation, less realistic and nearly psychedelic at times, that is different from both Disney and Pixar, the big Hollywood animation studios. Even the way the boy’s mom drives recklessly is notable, as well as quite funny. (Even funnier is watching Ponyo sort of run on top of the giant wave that’s chasing the car. Honestly, the story of magic spells and the little fish-girl who wants to live on the land is borderng on the trite, not an adjective I’d associate with Miyazaki. (The other part of the story is about how the world might end if Ponyo doesn’t return to the sea like her dad wants.) But the kids will go for it, and there’s just enough quirky bits and humor that many adults will happily go along for the ride.
IMDB link
viewed 8/10/09 (screening at Ritz East) and reviewed 8/15/09
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