Sitges 2008: PONYO ON THE CLIFF BY THE SEA Review
Speculation has run rampant for years now that master animator Hayao Miyazaki - truly one of the all time greats - is reaching the end of his career, that he is ready to pack it in and retire. Because he insists on hand drawing most of his own key frames and is intimately involved in the entire process of creating his films the belief is that Miyazaki, no longer a young man, will simply not be able to physically meet the demands required to maintain his high standards for too much longer. And so each of his past several films has been released amidst much speculation that this one may finally be the last one. And if that ends up being the case with Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea then the master is going out of a good note and leaving the way he came in, with a decpetively simple film loaded with the sort of magic and wonder that only Miyazaki can provide.
Sosuke is a young boy, only five years old, living in a little house on a high cliff over looking the sea while his father is away working as captain of a ship. Sosuke's great love is the sea, a favorite pastime splashing about in the shallows with a toy boat, pretending to be a captain just like his father. And one day while splashing about before school Sosuke discovers something unusual, a strange fish wedged into a glass bottle - a fish who he frees, befriends and names Ponyo.
And Ponyo is no normal fish. No, not a normal fish at all, as is immediately obvious to all by the fact that she has a human face - a fact that Sosuke simply accepts as only a small child can. Ponyo is a magical creature, the daughter of Fujimoto - an undersea sorcerer who left human society years earlier in disgust at how people mistreat the sea - and a local sea goddess. Ponyo is bright and curious and unaware of the entent of her own power, and wants more than anything to explore beyond the narrow bounds set for her by her father. And when Ponyo meets Sosuke she falls immediately in love and wants - much to the horror of her father - to become fully human and live in the human world forever.
In many ways Ponyo marks a return to the sort of storytelling that made My Neighbour Totoro such a huge an enduring classic, with Ponyo basically filling the roles of both Mei and Totoro in this film, simultaneously living as both an energetic, imaginative little girl and a magical, wild creature. Like Totoro the film is based in the relationship between two young children and like Totoro it sees a world filled with magic and possibility and hope. It is a visual marvel - particularly the early scenes of Fujimoto working his undersea magic - and completely charming.
In some ways, however, you can't help but wish it were a little bit more like Totoro. With that early film Miyazaki proved the power of simplicity and swept viewers away in the experience of the film's world with minimal reliance on plot. Ponyo, however, is a much more plot-heavy film with a number of different sub-plots playing out simultaneously, many of which are left badly - and surprisingly - underdeveloped. Why Ponyo's desire to become human should trigger a major environmental catastrophe is never explained, neither is Fujimoto's seeming turnabout from wanting to cause the destruction of humanity to working to prevent it. The frustrating thing is that the film really doesn't need any of these side issues to be engaging and having them without properly developing them serves only to blemish an otherwise dazzling work.
Though Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea is not Miyazaki's strongest work it is still very, very clearly the work of an absolute master, a true wizard with a pencil more than capable of enthralling audiences of all ages. Here's hoping he has many years left in him.
