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Written by Mandroid3000
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LAPUTA: CASTLE IN THE SKY
****1/2 out of *****
Genres
1986
Directed by
Hayao Miyazaki
Written by
Hayao Miyazaki (screenplay and comic)
John Semper (English translation)
Voice Cast
Japanese version
Mayumi Tanaka .... Pazu
Keiko Yokozawa .... Sheeta
Kotoe Hatsui .... Dola
Minori Terada .... Muska
English version
James Van Der Beek .... Pazu
Anna Paquin .... Sheeta
Cloris Leachman .... Dola
Mark Hamill .... Col. Muska
Laputa: Castle in the Sky is an action-packed Japanese animation. It’s a mixture of several genres, the combination of which can best be described as grand adventure. The animation is great, and the voice cast (both Japanese and English) are good, though the Japanese is preferable. Anna Paquin’s occasional slips into a Kiwi accent can be a bit off-putting if you’re a New Zealander.
Sheeta is a young girl with a mysterious past. She’s inherited a strange necklace that both the military and air pirates are after. She doesn’t know what it does, and gets her first indication of its powers when she falls from a plane after an air pirate attack. It floats her to the ground, right into the workplace of a young boy, Pazu, who takes her into his home.
Not long after the Air Pirates and the Army track Sheeta down again. Pazu helps her escape, and they start to unravel the secret of the crystal. It’s somehow linked to the legendary floating island Laputa. Pazu’s father had believed in it, and once taken a partial photograph. People thought he was mad to believe in it, and Pazu wants to prove them wrong. They escape and attempt to unravel the necklace’s secrets and find Laputa.
The first two thirds of the film are filled with great action. The animation style is detailed and fluid, and it isn’t aimed at people with attention deficit problems. The action looks great, and you can actually see it. Miyazaki always has some brilliant vehicles and planes, and these are here in abundance. Pazu always seem to be about to fall off bridges or planes, only to scramble back on at the last minute. It’s brilliant, exciting stuff.
In the last third the tone moves to a sort-of science fiction that links ancient myths with new technology. But the great thing about Miyazaki’s films is that they don’t fall into the trap other anime often do. Where another film at this point may have turned into an endless straight-faced talk-a-thon, Miyazaki keeps enough other stuff going, and doesn’t allow characters to pound out uninterrupted monologues. He knows how to make an actual film, not a filmed lecture.
It would be preferable to see Laputa on a big cinema screen. It does show up occasionally at film festivals. I personally don’t recommend waiting for that to happen. Check it out on DVD, and then grab the opportunity for a big screen view if it shows up.
On a related note, the name Laputa is taken from the flying city in Gulliver’s Travels. Unfortunately, it means “the whore” in Spanish, and so the film was just called Castle in the Sky when Disney distributed it.
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