The Awesome ’80s in May: Castle in the Sky (1986)

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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.

Five Cool Things and R.E.M. Reuniting

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It is time for another five things. This time I’m talking about Porco Rosso, the animated film from Studio Ghibli, a wonderful episode of The Last of Us, Taskmaster my new favorite British Panel Show, a silly 1980s horror film called Trick or Treat, and one of my favorite 1980s movies, Heathers, which I shared with my daughter. Plus R.E.M. got back together for a single song with Michael Shannon. You can read all about it here.

The Boy and the Heron (2024)

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Hayao Miyazaki came out of retirement and made one of his best films. The Boy and the Heron is everything you want a Studio Ghibli film to be – exciting, adventurous, weird, funny, and ultimately moving. I love it. You can read my review of the 4K UHD disc over at Cinema Sentries.

Animation in August: Princess Mononoke (1997)

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Like most kids, I suppose I grew up watching animation. I loved Disney films and the movies of Don Bluth. Every afternoon and Saturday morning I watched television series like G.I. Joe, Thundercats, The Smurfs, and Muppet Babies. Later I fell in love with the films from Pixar.

While these types of films told different stories and used somewhat different animation styles, they all held a certain familiarity. They were all distinctly American.

Princess Mononoke was the first Studio Ghibli film I’d ever seen. This was the late 1990s, maybe or possibly early 2000. I was just becoming a true cinephile. I’d heard rumblings about Studio Ghibli for a while but I think this was the first big breakout it had in the States. Or maybe just in my orbit. It definitely got a big American release because the English dub included folks like Billy Crudup, Billy Bob Thornton, Claire Danes, and Gillian Anderson.

Anyway, I sat down with Princess Mononoke with high hopes. All the critics loved it. Honestly, I was a little disappointed. No, disappointed isn’t really the right word. I just didn’t know what to make of it. It was like no movie I’d ever seen before.

The animation was strange. In the opening scene, a demon attacks a village. But it doesn’t look like any demon I’d ever seen before. It wasn’t full of fire and horns. It was an enormous boar covered in slithering black worms. Later we meet tree spirits with human bodies and rattle-like heads, and a Great Forest Spirit with a deer-like body and an almost human face.

The story wasn’t like typical American animation with clear-cut good and bad guys. The characters were murkier. Our hero sometimes brutally murdered his enemies. The villain, if you can even call her that, rescued young women from a life of prostitution.

I think on that first viewing I just didn’t know how to process what I was watching. It was so different than anything else I’d ever seen, I wasn’t sure of what to make of it.

I’ve seen it several more times since then (and many more Studio Ghibli films) and now I just love it. What was so strange on that first viewing is endearing to me now. I love that it is different from most animated films.

So, quickly, the story involves Ashitaka (Crudup) the last prince of a small village (the one that gets attacked by that demon). He kills the demon and in the process, his arm is infected by it. This gives him super strength, but also seems to possess him at times and ultimately will kill him. When he learns that an iron ball lodged inside its body is what turned the Boar God into a demon he sets off to find out how it got lodged there.

The iron ball was actually a bullet from the newly invented gun (the film is set vaguely in the time before modern warfare) and it came from Iron Town, which is run by Lady Iboshi (Minnie Driver). She’s ostensibly the villain. But she’s also the one I was talking about earlier who has rescued women from a life of prostitution and given them a certain amount of autonomy. She also uses old men, warn down by disease and injury in her town. In many ways, she’s a good person. But she also has no problem destroying nature (and the gods that protect it) to enrich herself.

Ashitaka is ostensibly our hero, and yet we see him cut the heads off of numerous soldiers (accidentally, sort of – his demon-possessed arm gives him super strength which does most of the brutal damage but he’s still out to kill them.)

It is a movie filled with morally ambiguous characters, people who aren’t fully good or fully evil. They are complex, just like real people. And those gods? They have no problem with destruction either. The Great Forest Spirit indiscriminately kills.

The titular Princess (Claire Danes) is a human girl, raised by a wolf goddess and she hates humans. She wants to destroy them.

I love that. It is a complex, beautifully drawn story. The animation, while strange to my American eyes at first is beautiful as well.

Hayao Miyazaki who founded Studio Ghibli, and wrote/directed this film is one of the greatest animators of all time. I won’t say Princess Mononoke is his greatest achievement, but I won’t deny it either.

Howl’s Moving Castle (2004)

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Originally written on Mary 12, 2006

It seems Japan is the country of mention when it comes to film these days. Not only have they produced some of the best horror films of the last decade (see Ichi the Killer and Ringu) but they’ve made some incredibly imaginative animated films as well.

The most well-known animated director is a man named Hayao Miyazaki. A few of his films to make it over the pond are Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and most recently Howl’s Moving Castle.

Most of his films live in a fantasy world where mysterious, enchanting creatures roam freely with humans in a land where time seems to have escaped. People use modern conveniences along with ancient methods of living. There is usually a small, weaker protagonist up against massive odds.

In Howl’s Moving Castle, a young, unconfident girl, named Sofi has a spell cast upon her by an evil witch causing her to appear as an old woman. As this woman, Sofi gains some confidence and takes off for the moving castle which wanders through the countryside.

In it, she meets up with a young boy, a demon living in the body of a constant fire, and Howl himself. Howl is a wizard, who has nearly slipped into oblivion over self-doubt. He does, however, slip out of his castle to help stop a war going on between his own country’s land and another.

It is a moving story of characters finding their own character and becoming strong humans. It is told in a creative, beautiful way and is truly a cartoon that means just as much to adults as children.

Miyazaki creates animated features that are fit for the whole family in a way that is entirely different than those films from American companies like Pixar. Films like Toy Story appeal to all ages in that they are hilarious to everybody. The jokes hit on kid levels and adult levels without ever becoming saccharine or too mature. I love Pixar films, but Miyazaki films are so incredibly different.

There is humor in his films, but it comes from a very human place. In Howl’s Moving Castle, the only really jokey character is the demon fire, and that mainly comes from the fact that Billy Crystal does the English voice for the character. Mostly, there aren’t a lot of jokes as much as humor that comes from the situations.

It is more of a fantasy than a comedy, with fantastic characters and mesmerizing animation. Fully and highly recommended for anyone.