HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM
Aug. 18th, 2009 03:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davidnI think it was ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yemminie who introduced me to the mad genius of Hayao Miyazaki when she encouraged us to go to see Spirited Away when it was released in Britain about four years after everywhere else. This weekend, when staying with friends in New York, we went out to see his latest film, originally called Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea but shortened to just Ponyo for less verbose countries.
I was very surprised from the start, as I knew nothing about the film before watching it, and the titular character turned out to be an unnatural human-fish-Pacman ghost chimera (and only one of the characters seems remotely unsettled that it has a human head). But Miyazaki seems to be able to make anything look good - it's very nice to see a drawn film at all again, and the style is wonderful as always. The charm is turned on from the moment she's first seen along with her tidal wave of squeaking Ponyo-babies.
Though I'm at a bit of a loss to explain what happens in it - do you remember at the end of Howl's Moving Castle when a lot of things suddenly happened without any explanation at all (presumably to cram the leftover bits from the book in)? This is a bit like that, except that's the whole film. There's a sort of environmental theme around it, with her causing a storm that raises the sea level by drawing the moon closer and deciding to grow arms and legs to be a human after a boy on a nearby island rescues her from a jar and feeds her some ham, and they're both constantly pursued by her father, who wants to destroy all humans but only wants to save them and restore the balance of nature as well... it was made in Japan. That's about all you need to know.
Speaking of her father, Liam Neeson deserves an award category to himself this year for Most Miscast Person - I don't think anything will ever beat the time when Rik Mayall was given the title role in Merlin in this department, but when Fujimoto is wandering around his undersea lab like a Sideshow Bob-haired James Bond villain muttering to himself for extended periods of time, the voice just doesn't fit. It's impossible to reconcile the character with the voice when the heroes are being pursued by giant grinning wave-fish summoned by Daniel from Love Actually, even if he almost fits the favourite villain mould in this country geographically. In fact he almost sounds like he's trying to be Christopher Lloyd in places - who on reflection would be a lot more appropriate. He's certainly got the hair for it.
The Totoro-like theme song that plays at the end is also worth a mention - it's weird enough originally, but if you don't speak Japanese, the Americans have obligingly wrecked it, as this is their foremost national talent. I hadn't actually thought it was possible to fit that much autotune into three minutes before.
yemminie who introduced me to the mad genius of Hayao Miyazaki when she encouraged us to go to see Spirited Away when it was released in Britain about four years after everywhere else. This weekend, when staying with friends in New York, we went out to see his latest film, originally called Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea but shortened to just Ponyo for less verbose countries.I was very surprised from the start, as I knew nothing about the film before watching it, and the titular character turned out to be an unnatural human-fish-Pacman ghost chimera (and only one of the characters seems remotely unsettled that it has a human head). But Miyazaki seems to be able to make anything look good - it's very nice to see a drawn film at all again, and the style is wonderful as always. The charm is turned on from the moment she's first seen along with her tidal wave of squeaking Ponyo-babies.
Though I'm at a bit of a loss to explain what happens in it - do you remember at the end of Howl's Moving Castle when a lot of things suddenly happened without any explanation at all (presumably to cram the leftover bits from the book in)? This is a bit like that, except that's the whole film. There's a sort of environmental theme around it, with her causing a storm that raises the sea level by drawing the moon closer and deciding to grow arms and legs to be a human after a boy on a nearby island rescues her from a jar and feeds her some ham, and they're both constantly pursued by her father, who wants to destroy all humans but only wants to save them and restore the balance of nature as well... it was made in Japan. That's about all you need to know.
Speaking of her father, Liam Neeson deserves an award category to himself this year for Most Miscast Person - I don't think anything will ever beat the time when Rik Mayall was given the title role in Merlin in this department, but when Fujimoto is wandering around his undersea lab like a Sideshow Bob-haired James Bond villain muttering to himself for extended periods of time, the voice just doesn't fit. It's impossible to reconcile the character with the voice when the heroes are being pursued by giant grinning wave-fish summoned by Daniel from Love Actually, even if he almost fits the favourite villain mould in this country geographically. In fact he almost sounds like he's trying to be Christopher Lloyd in places - who on reflection would be a lot more appropriate. He's certainly got the hair for it.
The Totoro-like theme song that plays at the end is also worth a mention - it's weird enough originally, but if you don't speak Japanese, the Americans have obligingly wrecked it, as this is their foremost national talent. I hadn't actually thought it was possible to fit that much autotune into three minutes before.
