German 354

In week 9 we viewed scenes from the movie “Ponyo”, a Hayao Miyazaki film released in 2008. The film focuses on many aspects of discussions and readings that have been looked at during the entire term. “Ponyo” very heavily references Andersen's “The Little Mermaid” and Fouqué's “Undine” in terms of gender, like we discussed in Judith Butler’s work, as well as enlightenment, as we discussed with Kant. In this case, “enlightenment” is giving human characters little lights in their eyes, and the creatures of the sea little black dots.The strongest ties from our previous texts to Ponyo were Timothy Morton’s concept of nature from “Ecology Without Nature” and Paracelsus’ ideas of elemental chaos, which is made clear of the water world taking over the human world, causing the moon to fall to Earth.“Ponyo” is a good movie to see in order to wrap up the class. There are elements of every theory we discussed from gender, nature, and magic, to domestication. One unique element of this movie was the music—specifically its similarities to the music of Wagner.  Ponyo’s little typhoon is accompanied by music that sounds very much like “Ride of the Valkyries” (with the lively, moving string parts and the lyrical, powerful brass lines). This is Miyazaki’s way of emphasizing Ponyo’s power. She is named after a powerful Valkyrie (Brunhilde), and the music is a good reminder that while Ponyo looks like a sweet little girl, she is actually a powerful being from a magical, other reality.