Every time my friends and I get on to reminiscing about the cartoons we used to watch as kids we all remember some of our favourites, the likes of Thundercats, Bravestarr, Count Duckula, Dangermouse, the original He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Dogtanian, The Trap Door, Dungeons and Dragons and The Mysterious Cities of Gold, amongst others. There is always one that I vaguely remember and ask people about, it featured a flying city hidden in the eye of the hurricane, which lay dormant but had lots of robots that came to life when the protagonists (a boy and girl) find it. For years I’ve asked people and never got a response. By pure coincedence, I was looking at Hayao Miyazaki’s back catalogue after seeing the excellent Kaze no tani no Naushika (AKA Nausicaä of the Valley of the Winds) at Cannes and spotted a film called Laputa: Castle in the Sky (AKA Tenkû no shiro Rapyuta). I grabbed a copy from Amazon and I watched it a couple of days ago. I’m glad to report that Laputa (pronounced La-pew-ta) is the lost cartoon I remember!
The film follows Pazu and Sheeta, two children who are thrown together when Sheeta falls from an airship in which she is being held prisoner by government agents when sky pirates raid them looking to steal Sheeta’s pendant, which has special powers. Chased by government agents, the army and sky pirates, Pazu tries hard to keep Sheeta safe, but eventually she’s captured and Pazu must turn to the sky pirates, headed by Dola, who aren’t actually as nasty as they first appear and, after helping Sheeta escape from an army fortress (albeit in the middle of chaos caused by a robot that is brought back to life by Sheeta’s crystal and her cry for help) end up taking the children to heart and decide to help them. The government, it transpires, is also looking for the legendary Laputa and the race is on to get there first.
The sky pirates, chased by a giant army airship, ride the rough storm that surrounds Laputa and break through into the quiet interior. The giant flying castle is exactly as the myths describe, deserted, but with robots and other technology all lying dormant, waiting for the heirs to return. Sheeta is a decedant of the rulers of Laputa, and the strange crystal in her pendant is from the castle (a larger version provides all the power and levitation for the whole castle city), but so is one of the government agents that has been chasing her, and he knows far more about Laputa and it’s people, all he needed was the location and the crystal to enable him to use the powerful weapons it has to control the planet.
It’s an interesting and exciting tale, with many of Miyazaki’s trademarks, not least the stunning animation and wonderful characters. Staged in a similar universe to Howl’s Moving Castle, a victorian-era Europe where industrialisation has run rife and airships covered in propellars lumber through the sky. I loved the characters and locations, the animation, as I said, while not as slick as the CGI we’re getting used to, is warm and creates a charming mise-en-scene. The action is intense. The one thing for me that wasn’t quite right was the ending. The story spends a lot of time with the characters searching for Laputa, then getting there and once we’re inside we seem to race toward the end all too quickly. Instead of drawing it out, cranking the tension up and holding the fate of the world on a knife edge for a while, it’s over and gone with no real explanation of where the inhabitants of Laputa went, why the didn’t destroy their technology and how Sheeta and Muska (the government agent) got to be where they are.
Other than that, a stunning story and superb entertainment.
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