Ponyo

Hurry! Must Leave Thursday!
at Amherst Cinema
Friday 9/25 through Thursday 10/1   2:00   4:15

"Hayao Miyazaki’s latest animated film, a very loose adaptation of The Little Mermaid called PONYO, is more straightforward and kiddie-friendly than his multilayered masterpiece SPIRITED AWAY, but in some ways its simplicity lets you see the director’s greatness more clearly. The title character is a fish who turns into a little girl to be with a boy named Sosuke.  Her father is a once-human wizard who lives underwater and despises humankind for polluting the planet. The father keeps his precious daughter in a bubble, afraid she’ll be carried to the surface—which she is anyway, on a jellyfish—and before he can rescue her, the wee fish begins her evolution. The natural world goes into an uproar as the moon descends and waters rise, and it falls to young Sosuke to prove his love for Ponyo is true.  Miyazaki proves why two-dimensional hand-drawn animation will always be more thrilling than 3-D: It doesn’t need to pretend to be bound by the laws of physics. The borders between flesh and spirit are infinitely porous. But when Miyazaki makes films that decry the threat to the natural world, every molecule onscreen resonates with that belief—a belief that dissolves the boundaries between form and content." — David Edelstein, NEW YORK MAGAZINE
With the voices of Liam Neeson, Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Lily Tomlin and Tina Fey.  visit site

Director Hayao Miyazaki.  100 mins, Rated G