Pondering Ponyo
(There are spoilers below.) When I first watched Hayao Miyazaki's latest feature Ponyo , I thought it was another of Miyazaki's ecological fables. Based on Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke , it wouldn't be surprising to once again see Miyazaki dealing with humans' relationship to the environment. However, a second viewing and much thought has led me to the conclusion that the ecological elements are something of a MacGuffin, Hitchcock's term for an excuse to set the characters in motion when the director's real interest is somewhere else. Miyazaki's subject here is love, though not romantic love and certainly not sexual love. What the characters in this film are missing is devotional love. Just about every character in this film has been abandoned in one way or another. The nursing home that Sosuke's mother Lisa works at is next door to a school (or is it a pre-school?). In each case, the old and the young have been isolated from the world of adults....