Castle in the Sky
by Hayao Miyazaki
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Cloris Leachman, James Van Der Beek, Keiko Yokozawa, Kotoe Hatsui, Mayumi TanakaDirector: Hayao Miyazaki
Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
Cinematographer: Hirokata Takahashi
Writer: Hayao Miyazaki
Producer: Hideo Ogata
Producer: Isao Takahata
Producer: Tatsumi Yamashita
Producer: Todd Olsson
Producer: Yasuyoshi Tokuma
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: French (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Original Language); Japanese (Original Language)
Format: Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 124 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-04-15
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Walt Disney Video
Product features:
- The magic touch of master animator Hayao Miyazaki is visible from start to finish in CASTLE IN THE SKY -- an imaginative tale full of mystery and adventure. The high-flying journey begins when Pazu, a mining apprentice, finds a young girl wearing a glowing pendant and floating down from the sky. Together, they discover both are searching for the legendary floating castle, Laputa, and vow to unrave
Movie Reviews of Castle in the Sky
Movie Review: Anything But Trivial
Summary: 5 Stars
Miyazaki Hayao's Castle in the Sky is perhaps the most difficult but rewarding movie to watch, to contemplate on and to share one's thoughts about. Castle in the Sky is really a manga movie and not just your garden-variety animation offering either. Castle in the Sky moves forward on many levels and yet it pulls back on others. Castle in the Sky in a sense is trapped in its own circularity. Moreover, Miyazaki is a master at playing with the aesthetic of weightlessness. He uses 'natural elements' like the wind in place of a more mechanical source. Miyazaki compels us to consider the plundering of nature. He, moreover, asks us to pause and to reconsider man's need to conquer nature as well as the misuse of technologies. Like Sheeta we grapple with our own weightlessness, our own significance.
Castle in the Sky provides a sustained and critical assessment of our attitudes toward technology. Effectively this generation has inherited what technology it currently uses and lacks discipline and appreciation of the impact of our use of it. In moves similar to those made in Princess Mononoke, it is not so much technology that is the issue but rather the use (or misuse) we subject it to. The enemy is not technology but rather our use of technology that calls us to question our ideas on progress. In a sense, it could be argued that Miyazaki is nostalgic for a bygone era - to return to that zero point when we did not have technology on this scale. As mentioned previously, although less pronounced than Princess Mononoke, both stories converge in their subtle but sustained critique of progress and technology without really being a Romantic elegy of lost innocence. In this sense most anime can be seen to be exploring some postmodern themes -- but in my opinion only Princess Mononoke sustains a postmodern argument. Moreover, as a general rule anime takes into account issues of movement into its scenarios and players and the solutions are varied, of course, depending on specific anime sub-genre. However, there looks to be an overall tendency away from mechanical sources to sources of a more organic genesis. Although the use is more pronounced in Miyazaki's work, it is evident in the Cyborg and Mecha anime such as Ghost in the Shell, Akira and Armitage (all available on Amazon.com).
It could also be argued that both Castle in the Sky and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind are in a sense post-apocalyptic. In this sense most major anime offerings including: Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies calls to question the use of technology for destruction and ultimately domination. Miyazaki explores his Romantic notions by not only critiquing the use of advanced technology but by setting this movie in the early nineteenth century. The flying vessels all hearken back to a bygone era making the movie's signs almost period. This back and forth between technology and the bygone era disrupts a linear narrative making it, and I say this guardedly, postmodern.
Miyazaki's calling to the question the undisciplined use of technology elevates the movie beyond a good and evil bifurcation. Miyazaki calls to question the destructive force of unnatural creations and for domination by its users makes this (and all his other movies anything but trivial. The truth is, robots and similar technologies, are not in themselves the problem. It is rather to what use these implements are put. In anime we see moving scenes of robots protecting nests, befriending little animals as well as tending gardens as if we ascribe to these non-sentient beings the best of our qualities. Conversely, anime does not shy from the frightening scenes of the very same machines tearing up the countryside. With the juxtaposition, perhaps the mood is set to have us consider a back to nature approach.
Before I close, I wish to deal with the issue to the tragic and epic hero in Castle in the Sky. My sense of it is that Sheeta is, in a sense the epic heroine of the story in her reluctance and almost passive role in the movie. Castle in the Sky is steeped in an experience of floating, gliding and soaring -- hence weightlessness. Sheeta's flying stone is a passive tool in that it prevents her from falling. Sheeta does not fly. In Miyazaki's work -- like My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service flying is a way to achieve weightlessness. Here, Pazu is the one who seeks to soar -- making him seem somewhat of an active but tragic hero. Flying is a key element in Miyazaki?s films and it is the flying machines that are less mechanical and more organic that are privileged. Optimizing the energy in nature is the desired configuration. Miyazaki is one that will survive the ages because his creations are very challenging but nonetheless accessible. Castle in the Sky is hinged on the prospect of a world prior to technology making the movie, at the risk of sounding condescending, anything but trivial.
Miguel Llora
Summary of Castle in the Sky
Studio: Buena Vista Home Video Release Date: 04/15/2003 Run time: 125 minutes Rating: NrInspired by "Gulliver's Travels," the fantasy-adventure Castle in the Sky (1986) was Hayao Miyazaki's third feature, and helped to establish his reputation as a visionary in both Japan and America. The orphan Sheeta inherited a mysterious crystal that links her to the legendary sky-kingdom of Laputa. With the help of resourceful Pazu and a rollicking band of sky pirates, she makes her way to the ruins of the once-great civilization. Sheeta and Pazu must outwit the evil Muska, who plans to use Laputa's science to make himself ruler of the world. Castle echoes elements in Myazaki's earlier Nausicaä, and anticipates imagery in his later films, from My Neighbor Totoro to Spirited Away. Disney's new English dub, which features Anna Paquin (Sheeta), James Van Der Beek (Pazu), and Cloris Leachman (pirate matriarch Dola), is lively and close in tone to the original Japanese, if a bit talkier. The exciting flying sequences, appealing characters, and fantastic vision of a steam-powered future Jules Verne might have imagined make Castle in the Sky a must-have for fans of Japanese and Western animation. (Unrated: suitable for ages 10 and older: violence) --Charles Solomon
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