PONYO - Blu-ray review

Of all the Hayao Miyazaki films I've seen, I think "Ponyo" may have charmed me the most. Miyazaki has always incorporated realistic elements into his fantasy worlds--with films like "Kiki's Delivery Service" even incorporating hyper-realistic backgrounds--but each frame of this 2008 animated film visually explodes with detail--a pure delight to witness.

Miyazaki reportedly used some 170,000 visual images for "Ponyo," the most ever for this detail-oriented director. From the establishing shot that shows all manner of fish--prehistoric ones included--to shots of animated, sinister waves slapping against an operatic aria that reverberates in the background, "Ponyo" offers some pretty breathtaking artwork and animation. Even the anime-influenced or stylized artwork has more realistic movement than we often see in Japanese animation, and more fluid movement than what Miyazki has done in the past. Then there are interesting details and images, like a row of wheelchairs lined up at an old folks home. A great many scenes and sequences offer images that are distinctive or surprising in some way, and, of course, surprise is the main requisite for experiencing delight.

Even without an engaging plot and characters, "Ponyo" would be a stunning film just because of the artwork and animation. But when you add an inventive twist on "The Little Mermaid" tale by Hans Christian Andersen and a save-the-Earth message, it becomes all the more irresistible.

Ponyo is a goldfish with the head of a human who lives under the sea in a gigantic bubble with her formerly human father--a wizard of sorts who gave up his humanity in order to save the world by playing Neptune. He tries to protect all of his "children" the way any parent would, but Ponyo manages to slip away and rides on the back of a jellyfish until she arrives in a small fishing town, where a trawler netting more trash than fish (yep, the ocean has turned into a regular toilet) sweeps her up and imprisons her in a jar. She's washed up onto shore, and like Aladdin finding a genie within a lamp, five-year-old Sosuke sees the jar and rescues her. He puts her in a pail and brings her home. Call it love at first sight, because the two connect.

It's that connection that drives the narrative--a structure that's a little like a romantic comedy: boy finds girl in a jar, boy releases girl, loses girl when her father sends the elements to fetch her, and gets girl back again. But just as stylistically "Ponyo" is a merger, so it is in terms of its narrative, which blends realistic and fantastic elements with the kind of matter-of-factness that produces so-called Magical Realism. And "Ponyo" is a much more family-friendly film than "Howl's Moving Castle" or "Spirited Away."

Five-year-old Sosuke (Hiroki Doi/Frankie Jonoas) has a lot more freedom than most five year olds. His father works on a ship and is gone for long stretches of time, and his mother works at an old folks home next door to the school Sosuke attends. This kid loves to explore, and it's point-of-view filming that gives Miyazaki the chance to help us all rediscover the world as if through the eyes of a child. The artwork has a distinctly watercolor look to it, but Miyazaki's fondness of odd angles rather than middle-distance narrative shots and his blend of anime and western styles are mostly responsible for creating the different look and feel that "Ponyo" has.

When Sosuke finds his little "goldfish" whom he names Ponyo (Yuria Nara/Noah Cyrus) we can all see the face, but his mother treats it matter-of-factly and exclaims, "It's a goldfish!" Okay then, at that point we accept this as another peculiarity of style. The backgrounds are rendered more realistically than the characters, and some characters are rendered more cartoon-style than others. This was apparently one of them. But then we're surprised when Sosuke shows the old women at the old folks home his prize, and one of them shrieks that it has the face of a human, and that those kind cause tsunamis! That, of course, suggests that Sosuke's mother, Lisa (Tomoko Yamaguchi/Tina Fey) is so used to seeing things through Sosuke's eyes that she's not phased--or it suggests the obvious respect that Miyazaki has for the elderly, whom he includes in every film as sages.

The fantastic elements, and the invitation to read something larger and more fabulistic into the story, come from Ponyo's parents. There's Fujimoto (George Tokoro/Liam Neeson), who at the film's outset seems villainous--though by the time we get to the middle of the film we come to realize he's like any overprotective father. And at the end we're introduced to Ponyo's mother, which helps to further to explain her own magical powers that are introduced when her simple lick of Sosuke's cut, sustained when he smashes the glass jar to release her, is enough to heal it . . . and the taste of human blood enough to begin the transformation to human that Brunhilda (Ponyo's real name) craves as much as Andersen's Little Mermaid.

There are moments of peril caused by the sea and moments for both Sosuke and his mother to shine, but overall there's nothing so terrifying that would make the film inappropriate for younger children. It is, after all, rated G. But Miyazaki's film has that rare blend of elements that make it appeal to adults as well as children--not the least of which are plenty of film allusions. Parents who watch this with their children will take delight in a sequence that's right out of "The African Queen," or another that seems a homage to "Cocoon." Boys, meanwhile, will focus on the flippered submarine that Fujimoto pilots and the creatures and elements of nature he directs in echoes of Disney villains like Ursula. But ultimately, it's the combination of realistic and magical narratives, merged with that combination of styles, that makes "Ponyo" a satisfyingly rich film for the ages . . . all ages.

Video:
Beautiful. That's all I have to say about the animation, the artwork, and the AVC/MPEG-4 transfer to a 50GB disc. The opening sequence almost takes your breath away, and from there it's one sequence after another where you can't help but be awestruck by Miyazaki's artwork and animation and the way that this 1080p treatment brings them to live. There's a nice 3-D effect and the colors are wonderfully replicated. Miyazaki's style incorporates large surfaces without much texture, and those are remarkably free of grain. "Ponyo" is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen, "enhanced" for 16x9 televisions.

Audio:
Purists are going to be irritated that Disney gave the HD soundtrack to the dubbed English version, while the original Japanese is relegated to a less-dynamic Dolby Digital 5.1 Soundtrack with French. I have to agree. The marketing people who are strategizing these Miyazaki releases are blowing it. Do my kids care if they listen to a simple Dolby 5.1 soundtrack or a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1? Not really. To their ears it all sounds booming when the waves crash. It's audiophiles and Blu-ray fans who really care, and Disney could have had it both ways had they reversed it and went with the original Japanese on the HD soundtrack but still gave families a dubbed English track for those with children too small to read subtitles.

But I will say this. Because the lip movements aren't fully animated, the English dub isn't as offensive as some of the anime dubs. And the sound quality of the DTS-HD MA is spectacular. Whether we're dealing with whispers or howling winds, this soundtrack delivers a rich and full experience that pushes the sound into the room so that nothing hangs too close to the speaker sources. The musical score by Joe Hisaishi flows organically across the images and is nicely balanced against the dialogue and effects. Mostly, though, it's the ability of this track to deliver highs and lows with the same matter-of-fact precision as the mid-tones. It all seems so effortlessly constructed. This is as solid an audio as I've come across on a Blu-ray.

Unfortunately, Disney didn't treat the Japanese track the same, and I don't believe that any film's original language should be treated like a poor stepchild. The Dolby Digital 5.1 is a noticeable drop-off, both in the range of sound delivered and the dynamism and front-speaker spread. I would have given this a perfect 10 if it weren't for the fact that it was an English dub. My feeling is that if disc space is an issue, put out a three-disc set that offers one disc in English, one in Japanese, and a third disc that's either a DVD or Digital Copy.

Subtitles are in English SDH, French, and Spanish.

Extras:
This is a two-disc Blu-ray release which also features a DVD that contains only the feature film. The bonus features are all on the Blu-ray.

In addition to a brief three-minute intro by Disney executive producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy, if you're into storyboards you'll love the PIP trivia track that allows you to watch the film while simultaneously appreciating the film's development via storyboards, most of them in color. Other than sneak peeks for Disney and Miyazaki titles and BD-Live connectivity, the only other bonus features are contained in "The World of Ghibli." A "Behind the Studio" collection of short features begins with a conversation between good friends Miyazaki and Pixar's John Lasseter, and progresses through the conceptual stage, the early drawings, storyboarding, voice talents, and scoring the film. Thrown into the mix is a segment from a Japanese feature on "The Locations of Ponyo." Collectively the featurettes run approximately 40 minutes. For young viewers there are interactive games that give kids a chance to meet the characters in Miyazaki films that appear as icons on a map. The films included are the four that were released on March 2: "Ponyo," "My Neighbor Totoro," "Kiki's Delivery Service," and "Castle in the Sky." Kids can also take a test to see which character they're most like--a Disney standby.

Bottom Line:
After producing two films--"Howl's Moving Castle" and "Spirited Away"--that were aimed at older audiences and involved more complicated storylines, Miyazaki returned to the concept of a true "family film" with "Ponyo." I wouldn't say it's aimed at young children, but it's the kind of film that's more universally user-friendly than his last two films.