Laputa: Castle in the Sky was the first movie produced by Studio Ghibli, who went on to become the biggest animation house in Japan and gain worldwide recognition for Spirited Away. It�s the fantastical story of a girl who falls from the sky and into the life of young mine worker Pazu. Her strange crystal necklace floats her to earth safely, but is also the reason she is being chased by both the army and a local criminal gang, as it supposedly contains the secret to the lost sky island Laputa and all the treasures within.
The indelible Ghibli style is evident from the start, with beautifully lush hand-drawn animation and a fastidious attention to the details of this new world. The relatively simple tale is a perfect example of using a childlike wonder as a basis for a bigger story and it really is interesting to compare it to recent Disney output which seems to have sacrificed all creative drive and energy to commercialism. Indeed Disney is snapping up Ghibli films for American dubs and miserable marketing at the expense of preserving their own insipid releases and retreads (sequels to Peter Pan and The Jungle Book!?).
The fully-realised locations, based on a real Welsh mining town no less, and wonderful machines, both the airships and Laputa�s organic robots (looking like The Flaming Lip�s Unit 3000-21) are amazing. The messages of human greed and misuse of power are neither overwrought nor masked by demeaning sentimentalism such as everyone breaking into songs about trees. |
