Saturday, January 03, 2009
I watched the much-anticipated newest Miyazaki Hayao anime film Gake no Ue no Ponyo with the Anime Club alumni yesterday evening and although it wasn't as complex as other Miyazaki movies I've watched or heard about, it was still pretty good.
The story was simple but heart-warming and the characters were life-like yet cute and quirky, without being overly-cute and therefore annoying.
Zhijia was right that there were a few elements in the story which could have done better with more development, and I felt that the film's environmentalist criticism lacked punch and the representation of the relationship between Man and Nature was too utopian, but I've still got to hand it to Miyazaki for his genius in creating whimsical, fantastic, imaginative universes filled with childlike innocence and wonder.
I seldom watch more than 2 movies in a year, but there is another highly-rated show out now which is making me feel like I should part with more of my rapidly depleting money. Elegy is apparently about a Lit professor who has many affairs with his female students and when I first read about the film in a review in Life!, the first person who popped into my mind was a certain infamous prof in my department whose name is ironically the title for the highest-ranking official in a Christian church.
(On a side note, why do writers think that profs who have relationships with their students are Lit profs? Or that Lit profs often have relationships with their students? I'm also thinking of David Lurie from Disgrace).
But on a more serious note, I think the film sounds like a worthwhile watch and I'm probably going to catch it on my own on a weekday next week while my sister goes off to watch Ponyo.
kaoru said at 7:04 PM
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