Pom Poko

I was just wondering.

For those of you who have seen Pom Poko: How does it measure up to movies like Mononoke and Spirited Away?

It looks pretty interesting, and unique in its own way.

Thanks!

Dave

Pom Poko is a pretty enjoyable film, but I am not as attached to it as to other Ghibli works.

I think it is too ambitious, trying to pack most of the elements of the previous successes into 118 minutes: conflicts between man and nature, romance, humour, magic... The result is an output with mixed touches in various areas, but lacks a particular strong theme. For the characters, they are all very interesting. However, just like the diverged theme, there is no central character for us to put our attention to. I cannot even name any of the characters after seeing the movie again just some time ago.

The ending seems to tell us that any attempt of checking urbanization or gaining back the green areas is doomed to fail. What we can only do is to adapt ourselves to the corrupting city life. As realistic as it seems to be, this ending is very pessimistic, and somehow undermines the effort of many in the protection, preservation and restoration of the environment.

I believe that many Ghibli fans regard it as a great piece of work, though. So do not be discouraged by my comments and judge the movie by yourself.

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Thanks!