Skip to main content
Ponyo (2008)
Superman, Amelia Earhart, the Wright Brothers—these are just a few people who don’t believe in the power of flight as much as Hayao Miyazaki.
At least half of the anime visionary’s near-universally acclaimed filmography depicts the wonder of flying (Kiki’s Delivery Service, Porco Rosso, Howl’s Moving Castle, to cite a few).
The ocean, though? That’s just Ponyo.
In his lone aquatic outing, Miyazaki finds the water no less majestic but much more intense than the air. See: composer Joe Hisaishi’s distinctly fervent score and anthropomorphized waves trying to drag children into the depths.
Perhaps counterintuitively then, Ponyo is also the Miyazaki movie most fitting for kids under, let’s say, 8. That’s because it’s about a goldfish (Ponyo) who falls fin over flipper for a little boy who rescues her from a tide of detritus. Ponyo decides she wants to live with Sosuke as human besties.
What follows is Miyazaki’s take on The Little Mermaid, except that the human-fish’s passion for terrestrial life is defined by hanging out with her bud and housing ham. (Ponyo loves ham.)
Like so many Miyazaki films, Ponyo embraces folklore without compromising the director’s stubbornly idiosyncratic sensibility. See: a bizarre instance in which Ponyo the girl transforms back into a half-fish so she can aggressively nuzzle a baby to alleviate its head cold. Cold cured! Plot unchanged.
But the film’s unforgettable image—Ponyo striding across typhoon waves on her brand-new legs to catch up with Sosuke’s speeding car—points to an even deeper truth in Miyazaki’s worldview. His stories so frequently position children amid extreme elements not just for peril’s sake. Children themselves possess elemental power. Academy, Sept. 18–24.
Also Playing:
Academy: Scanners (1981), Sept. 16–17. The Cable Guy (1996), Sept. 18–24. Cinema 21: M (1931), Sept. 19. Cinemagic: Barbarian (2022), Sept. 16. Clinton: Salome (1972), Sept. 16. Shrek the Third (2007), Sept. 17. Shrek Forever After (2010) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Sept. 19. Hollywood: Ghost in the Shell (1995), Sept. 18–29. Suroh: Alien Hitchhiker (1996), Sept. 19. The General (1926), Sept. 19 and 20. Der Fan (1982), Sept. 20. It (2017) and It: Chapter Two (2019) double feature, Sept. 21. Savage Streets (1984), Sept. 22. Moreland: Happy Death Day (2017), Sept. 18. Tomorrow: Party Monster (2003), Sept. 17.
