This is an accreting review of Laputa : Castle in the Sky (1986)
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11 May
This is an accreting review of Laputa : Castle in the Sky (Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta) (1986)
At @CamPicturehouse, Hiyao Miyazaki evoked and with engaged our sense of wonder - Laputa : Castle in the Sky (Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta) (1986)— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 11, 2016
Film references (identifying other films directed by Hayao Miyazaki¹) :
* Akira (1988)
* Howl’s Moving Castle (Hauru no ugoku shiro) (2004) [Hayao M.]
* Jupiter Ascending (2015)
* Princess Mononoke (1997) [Hayao M.]
* Spirited Away (Sento Chihirono kamikakushi) (2001) [Hayao M.]
* The Iron Giant (1999) [based on The Iron Man : A Children's Story in Five Nights, a novel by Ted Hughes, first published in 1968]
-> At @CamPicturehouse, Laputa : Castle in the Sky (Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta) (1986) would remind of The Iron Giant, but Hughes came first...— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 12, 2016
* The Matrix (1999)
* The Wind Rises (Kaze tachinu) (2013) [Hayao M.]
[...]
-> In 1726, when Swift first published what we call Gulliver's Travels, they still gave them snappy titles that smacked of verisimilitude.— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 12, 2016
[...]
End-notes
¹ The following list is of motifs that will be familiar from these films (it is given non-exhaustively - simply to show that, as directors Wes Anderson or Woody Allen, for example, might have penchants or pet-themes that run through their films, even more so does Miyazaki, almost as if they are, as the case may be, running jokes, or leitmotifs) :
* Appearances / things not being what they seem (e.g. Princess Mononoke)
* Clouds / cloud formations (e.g. The Wind Rises)
* Flowers / blossoms (e.g. Howl’s Moving Castle)
* Flying-machines (e.g. The Wind Rises, and IMDb (@IMDb) lists Miyazaki's short film called Imaginary Flying Machines (2002))
* Gluttony (e.g. Spirited Away)
* Helpful eccentrics / outsiders (e.g. Spirited Away)
* Literary adaptation (e.g. Howl’s Moving Castle and the novel by Diana Wynne Jones)
* Noble blood / nobility in disguise (e.g. Spirited Away)
* Orphans (e.g. The Wind Rises)
* Powerful older women, behaving somewhat boisterously (e.g. Spirited Away)
* Railways (e.g. Spirited Away)
* The Industrial Revolution (in Western Europe) : factories, quarrying and the like (e.g. Princess Mononoke)
* Working / having to work menially to earn one’s keep (e.g. Spirited Away)
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
