VENICE, Italy — Animator Hayao Miyazaki, who won an Oscar for 2001’s “Spirited Away,” forgoes computer graphics and returns to the pencil and crayon for his latest film, an East-meets-West nod to Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid.” Already a hit in Japan, “Pon yo on the Cliff by the Sea” opened Sunday at the Venice Film Festival, where it is competing for the coveted Golden Lion.
“Ponyo” tells the story of a goldfish who longs to become a girl after getting a glimpse of the human world when she is rescued from a jam jar by 5-year-old Sosuke, a boy who lives on a cliff above the sea. As in “The Little Mermaid,” Ponyo’s transformation is opposed by her father, an underwater sorcerer who was once human, and she must make a sacrifice, in this case her magical powers, to become human. The Associated Press
