Isao Takahata's Pom Poko (1994) is the most disastrous film Studio Ghibli has ever made. This film made me lose my hope in Takahata (at least for the moment) and instantly prefer Miyazaki of the two Ghibli veterans - because he has never made anything nearly as bad as this one. Pom Poko is about a group of tanuki who try to protect their forest with their magical power of transformation from humans who try to take advantage of it.
The biggest flaw of the film is its writing. The preachy environmental message is lost because the humans are never shown to be bad - instead the tanuki are really, really irritating. We are supposed to sympathize with them, but they are too selfish, irresponsible and absurd to be likable. The narrative's flow is clunky and its reliance on the narrator makes the film feel uneven. Takahata's use of absurdism just goes way over the top in the film and distracts the audience from the film very badly. I've got to give the film credit for its sheer amount of ambition and imagination, but both of them are wasted with such sloppy execution.
Even the form is not constantly up to Ghibli's high standards. While art design is not so bad, but its documentary-like approach makes the absurdism feel even weirder and more off-putting. The compositions, editing and music are still good and they are the only redeeming qualities of the film. And they help quite a lot.
Simply put: Pom Poko is a disaster even though it has a few good things.
Score: 4 out of 10
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