Studio Ghibli- Hayao Miyazaki (1986)Although definitely geared towards a younger audience, the film is animated classic that is incredibly creative and enjoyable to watch. It takes place in what resembles a Anglo Saxon city during some sort of neo industrial revolution, complete with sprawling industrial landscapes and majestic air ships to create a prevailing ‘steam punk’ aesthetic. The story begins with a gang of pirates attacking an air ship and a young girl, Sheeta, falling to the earth. Miraculously the strange crystal she was wearing delivers her safely to the ground. Pazu, a young miner, finds her and they become friends. The crystal’s power quickly attracts the attention of the pirates and the army, who soon give chase to the two heroes. An obvious cat and mouse adventure ensues. As the plot unravels, it is unveiled that the stone is from a lost civilization that existed on a floating city above the clouds. When a powerful robot mysteriously falls from the sky, the military is convinced that the city exists and that Sheeta and the crystal are the clue to finding it. After Sheeta unlocks the crystal’s power, it points the way to the lost city, and soon both the army and the pirates are in a race to reach it first. With the stone in the hands of the army, Sheeta and Pazu travel with the pirates, seeing past their mean exteriors and unveiling their gentler human dimension. Eventually both teams reach ‘Laputa’ the mythical city in the sky, where a high-ranking colonel reveals his sinister intentions of using the cities destructive power for personal gain. Now it is up to Sheeta and Pazu to prevent the city from falling into the hands of colonel and saving the world below.
Animation is an interesting aspect of film that struggles to get the recognition it deserves. It has advantages and disadvantages over traditional film. The advantage is obvious in that there are no creative constraints. Maybe this is why animations are so popular with children, whose imaginations are still unpolluted by rules of logic or principles of general physics. Anything that the director can imagine, they can create. Even the most overhyped Hollywood film, with excessive special effects budgets are constrained by gravity and economics. Special effect teams can easily make a single person fly through the air with cables and a green screen. However, trying to make ten, a hundred, or a thousand people fly in a scene is much more difficult, if not impossible. With animation, it does not matter, since the character and environment on the screen is a drawing or computer model subject to complete control of the animator. With animation, the creative possibilities are limitless.
Conversely, the disadvantage is the limited range of human expression a ‘cartoon’ character can convey. Any respectable actor can say a million things without saying a single word, just by a minor change in their facial expression or body language. On the other hand, an animated character maybe has a few dozen different expressions. Think of the facial expressions of Homer Simpson compared to Jack Nicolson. Think of the ephemeral and subtle details of the human face, dimples, scars, acne, and stubble. All of which would be impossible to capture in a drawing, let alone full-length animated feature. Granted with the advancement of computers, animations have gained ground in the above area, but there is still no competition. This is why it is so difficult to treat animations as films, because they lack the human component. To speak of an animation as a film, to compare Miyazaki in the same league as Fellini or Lynch, it has to create a world so completely removed from the laws of reality. It has to present a level of creativity so high, that the director could never realize with human actors and traditional methods. Castle in the Sky easily meets the above criteria, and is not only a great animation, but is a great film.
