Ponyo is the story of a fish-girl who wants to be human. Following a near death experience with a fishing trawler, Ponyo (Noah Cyrus) befriends Sosuke (Frankie Jonas), a sensitive little chap with a fierce undercut, an absent fisherman father (Matt Damon), and a mother (Tina Fey) who should have her licence revoked for the way she hugs the sharp bendy roads in the seaside village they all live in.
Ponyo, against the wishes of her father Fujimoto (Liam Neeson), uses her magic power to morph into a sleepy little girl. After which everyone has a jolly good time. I don’t mean to sound flippant – because this is a brilliant film full to the brim with the sort of animation that values craft over technology – but this special two-disc edition is just as much about the special features as it is about the main event. With over four hours of documentary material this is the full Ponyo experience. Fujimoto, Ponyo’s father and regulator of the ocean, who through overbearing efforts to protect his daughter ends up pushing her away, was devised as a proxy for Japanese fatherhood. “Most fathers suppress their emotions. I think that’s how today’s Japanese fathers are,” laughs creator Miyazaki. There’s also the revelation that during production Miyazaki decided that making a film with a children’s nursery wasn’t enough; he wanted to build a nursery. And so he did. It also unravels the creative of making the film and where it all started – halfway up a mountain overlooking the Seto Inland Sea.
Sometimes learning too much about a movie demystifies the experience and clouds the memory, particularly Miyazaki’s elliptical and woozy fantasy films. And for many that sense of magic is usually a function of childlike imagination aligning with visual overload and poetic storytelling. Don’t be afraid though – this spectacular film is not diminished in any way by explanation. If anything the allure is stronger.
