Then there is the fascination with flying machines, with the Tiger Moth, the scary Goliath, the smaller aircraft with insect-like movement, and of course the flying Laputa itself. Remember Tito, the fox-squirrel in Nausicaä? Look out for more of those cute creatures on Laputa. We also get the first appearance of our moustachioed engineer, a character trope that will be gloriously subverted in Spirited Away. Just like Nausicaä, we get a grotesquely drawn old lady and a wise old man. Miyazaki often looks to Britain for the starting point of his inspiration.
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British and Japanese cultures are combined, and not just in the Jonathan Swift source of inspiration the mining village is based on one in Wales visited by Miyazaki, and the courage of the miners is likewise inspired by the strength of character of the Welsh miners whose livelihoods were being lost in the 80s. Many of Miyazaki’s favourite themes are present here. As fun as Dola’s childish (but adult) pirate sons are, their attempts to impress Sheeta, with one of them even declaring his love for her, is uncomfortable to watch. The film has one major misstep in terms of characterisation.
#Laputa: castle in the sky full#
Sheeta is of course the epitome of Miyazaki’s typical young female hero, full of courage and enjoying a very innocent, gentle romance throughout the film, literally falling into the arms of Pazu. Miyazaki learnt pretty quickly that shades of grey are much more interesting, and we already have the seeds of that approach here, with Dola as the pirate captain with a heart, who ends up working with the good guys. This is the only time this will happen in a Ghibli film, unless I am forgetting something obvious. Unusually, we have a character here who is totally, irredeemably evil: Muska. Miyazaki, like most filmmakers, tells stories about good vs evil. Studio Ghibli was lucky enough to be able to combine the talents of at least two geniuses: Miyazaki, probably the greatest artist of his generation, and Joe Hisaishi, one of the world’s greatest composers. Where are the great artists of our generation to be found, and the great musicians? Making films. Modern art, like modern classical music, is largely a confidence trick, an exercise in the Emperor’s New Clothes, reliant on pretension.
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Where are the great artists to be found, in the 20th and 21st Centuries? What will future generations look back at and appreciate? Certainly little that’s hanging in the Tate Modern. In fact, this gets to the heart of something that I feel makes the film industry in general so important.
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If you really appreciate beautiful artwork, the Ghibli films are the place to look. This is one of the things that sets Miyazaki’s work above most modern animations. Unlike Nausicaä, the film lingers on beautiful scenery throughout, with even the mining village visually stunning, and as for Laputa itself… absolutely beautiful. It is remarkable how the Studio Ghibli style of making animated movies arrives fully formed here. The title is sometimes shortened simply to Castle in the Sky, as Hayao Miyazaki borrowed the name from Gulliver’s Travels, presumably without realising that Jonathan Swift chose the name as a political commentary and it is actually a vulgarity in Spanish. In 1985 the studio was founded that would go on to win an Academy Award for Spirited Away, and their first film project was Laputa: Castle in the Sky, released in 1986. Last week we looked at Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, not strictly speaking a Studio Ghibli film, but made by a lot of the same people before the founding of the studio.