I saw Ponyo today.
It's nice to see a film that's unafraid to not ask unimportant questions. There's a handful of negative reviews that'll tell you Ponyo doesn't make sense, and you might be tempted to agree if you don't know the difference between not making sense and not explaining everything.
Have you ever watched a fantasy film and wished for a different movie, one where someone cut out all those scenes where some old sage blathers on about the ancient history of the magical talismans and the legendary book and everything else that is, when you get right down to it, not even technically part of the story they're trying to tell?
Ponyo is that movie. Halfway through, we learn that Ponyo's crossing over into the human world has upset the balance of nature (one person describes it as "tearing a hole in the fabric of reality," which is an oddball line that doesn't really seem to jive wth anything we're seeing) and now the moon is crashing into the Earth.
Now, this is where your average internet critic cuts to a shot of himself, mouth agape, for several seconds, and then gives us a film-buffier-than-thou "uh... why?"
To which I say, does it matter? And more importantly, would any possible explanation be entertaining? If we're told a nuclear reactor is about to explode, do we need to learn why reactors explode, as well as the entire history of nuclear power? In the world of Ponyo, when nature gets unbalanced, the moon falls onto the Earth. That is just what happens. In another movie, knowledge of why might be enriching, but not in Ponyo. And this is irritating to people who, admirably, like to ask questions, but have no idea which questions matter.
Unanswered questions make a world seem bigger and wider than the movie or book that contain them. If you're creating a story about a fantastic world and you end it by answering all the questions, then you have elevated your audience's sense of wonder only so you could stamp it into the dirt. An imaginative world is a place for the audience's minds to play in, and you're doing them - and yourself- a disservice by locking the gate and swallowing the key when you're done writing the story.
Damn, I've just convinced myself that Lost's ending is, in one way or another, not going to be satisfying. Sometimes you get caught in the blast of your own logic bombs, people. Sigh.
