I feel like I don’t talk enough about Studio Ghibli. As I say this I look back and see that I’ve written about four of their films and not a single movie from Pixar so maybe I’m not quite telling the truth. But I do love Ghibli and I watch their films over and over again, moreso than pretty much any studio.

Castle in the Sky was the very first film produced by Studio Ghibli and it was directed by one of its founders (and its most famous name) Hayao Miyazaki. It was not the first film directed by Miyazaki (he’d been in the industry by this point for over a decade, working in television and as an animator in movies – he’d also directed a few feature films) but it was still early days in terms of him having full control over what he wanted to make.

You can already see the themes and characterizations he’d carry with him throughout his career being formed. This is a film that is anti-war, pro-nature, with a strong female protagonist. It also does something really interesting with its antagonist. It begins making you think one group of pirates are the enemies, but soon enough they’ve become friends with our heroes. Miyazaki is famous for having sympathetic antagonists. Here he does find some true enemies, but that switch with the pirates is wonderful.

I actually wrote about the time I got to see this film on the big screen a few years ago for Cinema Sentries so I don’t feel I need to talk about it much more, but it is a wonderful film and I do recommend it highly.