July
24, 2005
Having
spent the past several years digesting the works of Hayao Miyazaki,
I've found my understanding of the man continually evolve and change.
You see Spirited Away for the first time,
and you get a good idea of Miyazaki's style. You then discover Mononoke
and another side is revealed. You hunt down Totoro
and Kiki's Delivery Service, and still another
side is revealed. Porco Rosso and Whisper
of the Heart (the latter Miyazaki wrote) force you to rethink
things anew.
And
then you see Nausicaa, and you read his
novel, and pretty much all of your assumptions are thrown out the
window. You then go back rediscover all those extra layers. These
stories just build upon one another, and as a foreigner I'm still
trying to discipher the fragments.
Two
years ago, I watched The Castle of Cagliostro and felt largely left
out of the loop. I enjoyed the movie, but could not quite understand
why so many animation and adventure movie lovers claim it as a modern
classic. Then just a few weeks ago, I bought the DVD and everything
just clicked. The Kool-Aid finally kicked in.
For
me, it's helped tremendously that I've seen the original television
series of Lupin III from the early 1970's, most episodes which were
directed by Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. It also helps to have seen
Panda Go Panda, 3000 Leagues in Search
of Mother, Future Boy Conan, and Anne of Green
Gables. It's important because Miyazaki's style in that decade
is different from the style that emerged by the time Studio Ghibli
was founded.
Miyazaki's
serious themes, and his grappling between his idealism and cynicism,
don't emerge until middle age and the arrival of Nausicaa. His '70s
style is lighter, more freewheeling and slapstick, and more melodramatic.
It's a bit goofier, infused with slapstick comedy and adventure
serials, as well as Takahata's neorealism with the World Masterpiece
Theatre productions.
His
drawing style is likewise looser and more cartoonish. Characters
are more lumpy-headed, with sily grins, and hands are drawn squarish,
blocky. It fits the lighter, boyish energy of its creator.
The
'70s saw Miyazaki and Takahata create brlliant art, revolutionary
animation that owes far more to live cinema than the Americans ever
have. And at the end of this decade, we have Castle of Cagliostro
serves as a final triumph of that era.
Is
it important for you to know all of this in order to fully appreciate
this movie? I don't know, probably not. You will still enjoy yourself
if you walk in cold without any knowledge of what filmmaker created
it, or what that giant cat-thing at the beginning of Spirited Away
is. What I'm doing is describing my own evolution, and I believe
my own understanding is the better for it.
Saying
"the animation is choppy and looks old" is not a valid
complaint. It's a copout.
The
Castle of Cagliostro is, at heart, a caper movie, packed with action
scenes and screwball comedy. It's a mixture that isn't really seen,
apart from the Pink Panther movies with Peter Sellers. It's difficult
for a caper comedy to succeed without one side tipping over into
the other, and this is probably why such movies are rare, confined
to the realm of parody.
Miyazaki
triumphantly suggests that this genre is better suited for animation.
Both action and comedy are respected, and given equal space to breathe
on the screen. The plot is all setup - master thief Arsene Lupin
III (voiced by longtime Lupin actor Yasuo Yamada) and his oddball
cohorts travel to a postage stamp-sized country in search of legendary
counterfeit bills, while a diabolical villain has locked a young
women in a tower - and the movie is one long series of payoffs.
There's
a fantastic car chase early in Cagliostro that's nearly as thilling
as the chases in Bullit and The French Connection. It's a textbook
example of how to shoot an action sequence, from its kinetic motion,
to the swaying movements of the camers, to the minor comic bits.
Miyazaki brings a musical rhythm to action; that and the emotional
attachment to the characters are the prime reasons why he is among
the greatest masters of action cinema.
According
to urban legend, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are great fans,
who consider Cagliostro one of the greatest adventure films ever
made. I've never been able to prove this legend true, but there's
a lot that reminds me of Raiders of the Lost Ark in spirit. I do
know that James Cameron is a fan; a chase scene involving ninja
assassins was later quoted in Terminator 2.
In
Japan, animators lacked the resources to mimic Disney's fluid motions,
so they evolved differently, taking cues from live cinema. Cagliostro
is puncuated with tightly constructed scenes, with a strong emphasis
on formal composition. There are many scenes that are still, quiet.
Americans mistranslate this as "choppy animation," but
in the hands of a Miyazaki, this clearly isn't the case.
If
anything, there's an austerity to this film that gives it a certain
grace. It's very much a product of its time - the memorable music
sounds like a knockoff of every episode of Charlie's Angels ever
made - but the sheer professionalism makes it timeless. There hasn't
been an animated film quite like this, in which the animation shares
the stage with the writing, the acting, and the mood. Everything
is played straight, and not caricatured, even when Lupin or Zenigata
(the comically obsessive, bumbling cop) are clowning around.
There
isn't a whole lot of the deeply personal and moody Miyazaki in Castle
of Cagliostro that would later emerge during the Ghibli era, but
a number of his calling cards are still visable. There's an auto-gyro
that figures heavily at the climactic end of the second act. There
are the "two sisters," who first gained prominence in
Future Boy Conan and later became a Miyazaki staple. The "older"
sister, the aggressive and seductive spy Fujiko, is a regular player
from the Lupin III universe, but the "younger" sister
is a new character for the film. It is voiced by a new actress named
Shima Shimamoto, who takes the meek, empathic Clarisse and brings
her alive.
I'm
still not too thrilled to see Clarisse played as so weak and helpless;
I keep expecting her to take charge and show the boys who's in command.
This is one of those times where the boy, Lupin, gets to save the
day. Miyazaki-as-the-romantic-hero is another long-reoccuring theme.
Shimamoto
demonstrates a subtle range (as though something is lurking underneath
the surface), and perhaps hints to where the Miyazaki Heroine will
evolve. It's no small gesture that she returned to reprieve the
role in the final episode of the second Lupin III TV series (written
and directed by Miyazaki). Her greatest role will come five years
later, when her emotional fire will make her a legend. Sumi Shimamoto,
the Falconetti of animation.
For
now, we'll just have some fun with a great little caper film. Not
that there's anything wrong with that. It just may take you a little
longer to get there than others. |
