Hayao Miyazaki’s anime about the search for a flying castle where technology and nature exist in harmony.
Studio Ghibli’s debut feature inspired by Jonathan Swift’s fantastical novel Gulliver’s Travels is set in an alternative nineteenth century. This world’s legends talk about Laputa—a city of advanced technology that once floated in the sky, where humans lived in harmony with nature. For unknown reasons its population had to leave Laputa and descend to earth, and nobody has seen the castle ever since. Pazu, who works in the mines, believes that Laputa is real and dreams of finding it. One day he meets Sheeta—a girl who has a magical object that shows the way to the castle. Fleeing from government agents and pirates who want to use the object to get to Laputa’s riches and technology, the two kids find the castle and solve its mystery.
Much of the film is set in the sky: Sheeta flies with the help of her magical crystal, pursued by other characters in various aircraft. An early work by Miyazaki, it features sky, flights, and mesmerizing clouds—some of the key elements in the director’s universes. Even in the underground world the rocks hum and glimmer in the darkness like a starry night sky. However, Miyazaki does not contrast the sky and the earthly world, but, on the contrary, emphasizes the balancing interconnectedness of elements. In the harmonious organization of Laputa he sees an ecological utopia, where advanced technology and charming robots serve the preservation of nature and not its destruction.
The film will be screened in Japanese with Russian subtitles.
Castle in the Sky
Director: Hayao Miyadzaki
Japan, 1986. 124 min.
12+