Here are the 2009 Golden Globe nominations for Best Animated Feature:
•Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs — Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation; Sony Pictures Releasing
•Coraline — Laika, Inc.; Focus Features
•Fantastic Mr. Fox — American Empirical Picture; Twentieth Century Fox
•The Princess and the Frog — Walt Disney Pictures/Walt Disney Animation Studios; Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
•Up — Walt Disney Pictures/PIXAR Animation Studios; Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Here are the nominations for the same category at the Annie's - animation's biggest award:
•Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs — Sony Pictures Animation
•Coraline — Laika
•Fantastic Mr. Fox — 20th Century Fox
•The Princess and the Frog — Walt Disney Animation Studios
•The Secret of Kells — Cartoon Saloon
•Up — Pixar Animation Studios
If you follow animation at all, then you already know that Up won both awards.
Now, here are the Academy Award nominations for Best Animated Feature:
* Coraline, Henry Selick
* Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson
* The Princess and the Frog, John Musker and Ron Clements
* The Secret of Kells, Tomm Moore
* Up, Pete Docter
The Oscars picked the same films except that they chose to nominate The secret of Kells over Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. That's a bold move, and "The Secret of Kells" is an excellent animated feature that got very little exposure. In the end it doesn't really matter because none of the above have a prayer against Up. But if there were only five slots in the category the fifth should have gone to the one film that everyone ignored.
I have no complains about Up winning two of three so far, or the fact that it's the Oscar favorite. Up is genius and I think it also deserves the best picture and screenplay nominations it got too. But I listed all three of the big sexy animation awards here not because of what won or was nominated, but because of what wasn't nominated. Not one of them included one of the last brilliant examples of the dying art of hand-drawn cartoons for kids, Ponyo.
The Annie's nominated Miyazaki in the Best Director category, but even if he had won, which he didn’t, that wouldn’t recognize the brilliance of the overall production and production team, or even fully recognize Miyazaki because he didn’t just direct this movie he personally drew a lot of it - something that is extremely rare for a production on this scale.
So, why was Ponyo not nominated? I think it's because the selection committee is too 'old'. I suspect that most of the selection committee members are the type to lean toward the view that Ponyo's story just lacked substance compared to other films that were selected. It's the same criticism as Miyazaki fans that wanted something more along the lines of Laputa, Nausicaä or even Spirited Away have. Again, they are just too 'old'. Of course when I say old, I don't mean age. I mean that they are old at heart.
Even here in Japan where Ponyo was a massive hit, fans of Ghibli and Miyazaki tended to be disappointed by Ponyo. Meanwhile, kids absolutely adored it. I don't know what the older fans were expecting, though, because Miyazaki said he was making a movie for kids and that's precisely what he did. Ponyo's theme song should have given it away because it is exactly the same type of simple, repetitive and catchy song as the theme for Totoro is. It’s the kind of song that little kids love and will sing incessantly until everyone over the age of 8 can't stand to hear it anymore.
Ponyo is a beautifully animated picture-book fairy tale for young children who haven't yet learned adult concepts like logic or reason, which is why, for example, the arbitrariness of Ponyo's magic makes perfect sense. People who nitpick at silly details like that, or analyse the plot to death are missing the point. It's a fairy tale in a fantasy world and kids don't worry about things like that. No one has yet told the kids who love Ponyo to be realistic or to put things in perspective, so they haven't stopped dreaming about being a spaceman, or an explorer who will actually discover a real Ponyo on some far off beach, or maybe a big friendly forest spirit living in their own backyard.
Ponyo is a movie that doesn't lecture on it's themes, like the environment, the strong role of the mother in the story, or on any other moral themes because it doesn't have to. Only 'old' people blinded and deafened by cynisism and simpletons need to be hit over the head for messages that should be intrinsically understood to get through. That's already a strike against it in Hollywood, where you have to wear a ribbon and pimp a website for every cause you support, and get in everyone's face with your message via every media outlet possible. Sublty is nearly as endangered a species as hand-drawn animated features are, which is actually two strikes against Ponyo getting recognized for anything. I don't even want to talk about the fools who dismiss Ponyo before they've even seen it because it's probably just another one of those 'Japanese anime things', or some of the demented anime geeks who've filled up on a steady diet of cheaply made, limited animation 'anime', fast-food genre crap and have no clue what they are watching when shown a movie like Ponyo. Some of those people are the same misinformed bunch who think "Yotsuba to!" is moe, which it isn't. (By the way, if you like “Yotsuba to!” and also like great animation then I recommend giving Ponyo a look.)
Outside of fringe 'anime' fan groups and people who are just too cool or too adolescent to be able to see a kid's movie for what it is, only someone old at heart could possibly say that Ponyo lacked substance if they'd ever seen the face of a child totally captivated while watching it, and the excitement and wonder that lingers in them long after it's over.
There is a small, seemingly insignificant scene in the movie of Ponyo nodding off and then falling asleep while eating a bowl a ramen with Sosuke that just made my jaw drop. It became one of the defining moments of the movie for me. The reason it struck me is because it looked almost exactly like my 2 year old when he nodded off at the kitchen table while eating dinner only a few months before I saw Ponyo.
Ponyo is full of scenes like that. The interaction between the kids, and the kids with the mother is incredible and the subtle detail in every scene is remarkable. No wisecracking talking animals or digital effects either, only the warm, organic qualities that can only be achieved when something is handmade by people who love their work and understand a child's sense of wonder.
It's not difficult to see why Ghibli also build a nursery around the same time as Ponyo was being made.
To say Ponyo lacks depth is to completely miss the point. It's also sad, because if only the ‘old’ people could see the stunning depth and beauty in its simplicity, and understand that every visually stunning second of the movie was handmade - much of it my Miyazaki himself - maybe Ponyo would get the recognition it deserves. Instead, it's dismissed as a simple cartoon for kids.
At first even I didn't think Ponyo should be nominated for an Academy Award because it was a simple cartoon for little children. Then I watched it again and wondered what the hell was wrong with me for thinking that. "Best Animated Feature" shouldn't mean "Best Animated Feature that is also for adults." In Ponyo we have a well written story and characters that appeal greatly to the target audience, top notch voice acting, excellent music, sound and editing, and the animation is absolutely breathtaking. What else does a "Best Animated Feature" need!? In that sense, Ponyo deserved at least a nomination. Pixar would still win, but there is a reason that even the geniuses at Pixar hold Miyazaki in extremely high regard. The 'old' people who ignored this movie instead of celebrating it don't seem to realize this.
Ponyo reminded me that cartoons were once made for children. Cartoons were also handmade...
...by old people who are probably younger at heart than any of us are or ever were.
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