The Castle Of Cagliostro

(As a gesture of Transatlantic friendship, I’ve decided to review The Castle Of Cagliostro. After all it is my favorite movie to feature a Royal Wedding. That timeless tale of romance In which a simple girl is seduced, corrupted and brainwashed by an evil european aristocratic ruler. How can it not bring thoughts of the current celebration!... I mean it’s a a ooh I’ve just started an international incident haven’t I?)




It is a rare thing when a film so pleased with itself allows the audience to be so as well. The Castle Of Cagliostro is simply one of the most pleasurable movies that I know of. When Steven Spielberg named it one of the greatest adventure films of all time he wasn’t kidding. If anything I’d even take it a step further. The Castle Of Cagliostro is one of the most purely entertaining films of all time. It deserves to stand aside the likes of Charade, The Adventure’s Of Robin Hood, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, To Catch A Thief, Goldfinger, North By Northwest and those other rare perfect swashbuckling entertainments. Yet even though it certainly shares DNA with those films it still remains itself, if only because even in this his most genre based film Miyaziki still finds moments for delicacy, beauty, grace and humanism.

It’s a film that takes fierce joy in and of itself, boundlessly pleased by its boundless wit, style, and invention. Producing ingenious set pieces, dramatic flourishes, Euro Ninjas (The Best Kind Of Ninjas), feats of daring do. All produced with the same enthusiasm and flourish with which the word “Auto Gyro” Is pronounced.



Look I'm fully aware that this review has already rounded the bend at gushing some time ago, but if its success didn’t feel so alchemical I’d say it was a textbook example of narrative filmmaking. It’s a film that delivers a tremendous amount of narrative information and exposition with an uncanny grace. Though The Castle Of Cagliostro is an entry in an ongoing series, it delivers its mythology with such seamless precision that one never for a second feels out of the loop, even if the viewer has never heard of the series before (indeed perhaps that is the ideal way to see the movie, as my attempts to follow the series further have been met with distinct disappointment). While it’s true that the film is a standalone, simply saying that doesn’t give enough credit to the grace and clarity of the narrative. The moment the characters step on screen you know exactly who they are, not merely because they are archetypes but because Miyaziki makes them such individuals that it is impossible to mistake them for anyone but themselves.

The simplest and clearest description I’ve heard of the Miyaziki technique is that Miyaziki somehow manages to draw his characters how they look on the inside. This is a littler tougher to judge in Castle Of Cagliostro, as Miyaziki is conforming to the house style of another artist. Yet while the animation isn’t as lush as what Miyaziki would accomplish at Ghibli, it is as expressive as and atmospheric as anything the venerable studio has produced. Every setting and character feels like an animator’s playground. The Count’s Castle a fantastic haunted house, and the surroundings alternate between lush agrarianism and subtle sophistication. Indeed this blend show’s Miyaziki’s Europe of the mind to be fully crystallized. As is the style of the deceptive simplicity that Miyaziki would employ to such great effect in his work at Ghibli (look for example at Lupin’s car simple yet accurate).

There is not much more to say about The Castle Of Cagliostro, it is all surface, but it is a surface made up of evil Counts, moonlit duels, daring rescues, self sacrifice, neat gadgets, lost cities, ancient treasures, clever tricks and plots, pure hearted heroes and exotic lands. Is there a soul so dead that it does not respond just a little to such an embarrassment of riches?

The Castle Of Cagliostro is simply a delight.

The 25: Part 5: Kiki's Delivery Service

(The twenty five is an examination of the twenty five films that made me a cinephile. These aren’t necessarily what I consider best movies, nor are they necessarily my favorite. Though in some cases they are both. Instead these are the films that made the biggest most indenialable impression on me. Films that if they hadn’t hit a certain way at a certain time I would not be the same film goer that I am today. They’re the twenty five.)



For the record I’m reviewing the dub of Kiki’s Delivery Service. I’m normally a sub purist, but for Kiki I make an exception. It’s the one I was introduced to, the one I admittedly usually watch, and the one I always think of. I wouldn’t be fooling anyone if I did not admit that for me, Phil Hartman IS Gigi.)

There is some but not as much overlap as I expected between my favorite films of all time, and the most influential one’s I’m writing about. Kiki’s Delivery Service is one of the few that makes both lists. The effect it had on how I view the movies, animation and the concept of narrative cannot be underestimated.

This might seem like an odd choice, as even fervent Miyaziki fans tend to dismiss Kiki, writing it off as either the least of the masterpieces, or the best of the second tier. It's my personal favorite of his films.

I saw Kiki’s Delivery Service around twelve, just at the time I was supposed to be outgrowing cartoons, let alone a cartoon about a cute Girl Witch. A notion I wasn’t all too eager to be dissuaded from. Kiki did to my dismissal of animation and my ideas of what a story should be what the tollbooths did to James Caan in The Godfather, shredded them beyond recognition.

Lets start with something that I don’t know if, my younger readers will be able to grasp, and that’s just how alien Kiki’s Delivery Service looked at the time. Anime has been more or less utterly assimilated into American culture, you can find it in our advertising, movies, TV shows, and breakfast cereals. But back in 1997 it was still a genuine other. You have to remember this was when VIDEO Games where trying to make sure, that their covers didn’t look like anime. Think about that. They where afraid that nerds wouldn’t like anime. That’s how weirded out by this people where.

(So This...)

(Becomes This...)

Sure Ghost In The Shell and Akira had played in US theaters, but these where both unabashedly cult films and hadn’t really crossed over to the genuine public. DBZ and Sailor Moon where both on TV, but I didn’t have cable, and hadn’t seen either of those shows in more then an isolated clips.

Of course Pokemon was only a few years away from rewiring everyone under the age of fourteen’s brain to accept anime as a set of aesthetics unquestionally, setting off the Manga Bubble. Soon Princess Mononoke would pave the way for Spirited Away’s theatrical run and Oscar win which was the first time that adult American film goers really had no choice but to pay attention to anime. But at the time I really can’t overstate how shockingly, entrancingly different from everything else Kiki’s Delivery Service looked.



Kiki’s Delivery Service follows a young witch who according to her family’s tradition leaves home for a year to live and train on her own, Odd perhaps for a film, that features a talking cat and a zeppelin crash, Kiki’s Delivery Service is a film I find so splendid for simply recording the day to day nature of life. Compared to the frenetic narratives of the film’s I’d been exposed to at the time (to say nothing of the down right spastic animated films I’d encountered) Kiki is calm. There’s no manufactured crisis, save the crash at the end of that film and even that isn’t some world endangering disaster but simply treated as something bad that happens and is gotten through. A nasty accident and one of many we’ll encounter in life. Like the sickness before it, and the temporary loss of inspiration this too shall pass.

Think of the things that happen in Kiki, the actual narrative events; Kiki makes a delivery, Kiki goes shopping, Kiki spends the night at a friends house, Kiki takes a bike ride down to the beach, Kiki buys household supplies, Kiki minds the bakery for a few hours, Kiki is nice to an old person and lets not forget Kiki accidentally stands someone up and then gets a cold. I like to think as he was reading that list Jeffery Katzenberg eyes began to bleed before he burst into flames.

And yet, never once does Kiki seem dull or ponderous. Far from the fantastical making the real world seem passé, Kiki takes the rhythms of every day life, and makes them magic. If Fellini ever directed a script by Ozu it’d probably go a little something like this. (Indeed one of my favorite little touches of the film is the way that Miyaziki sprinkles in Ozu like pillow shots throughout the movie. Unless I’m mistaken I don’t think it’s a technique that Miyaziki has used before, and it lends his film a subtly meditative air.



The film plays like a check list of the things that Miyaziki loves portrayed in their purest forms. Always a feminist friendly directed, Kiki’s Delivery Service almost plays like 8 ½ without a deep abiding fear of women. The cast aside from Kiki’s geeky would be beau, is almost exclusively female and represent the various ages and stages of womanhood; from the independent artist Urusula, to domestic Goddess Osana, and the elderly graceful Madame. These are idealized women to be sure, but they are idealized in their intelligence and kindness.

The film is grandly humanistic as the best of Miyaziki. Miyaziki has always been one of the great compassionate directors, with the effect of his gentleness aided, not impaired by the skill with which he is able to render humanities flaws. In this film he does portray characters as selfish, and occasionally mean spirited. But he also gives them the benefit of the doubt. In one scene a posse of mean girls, who've been showing up in the periphery of the film, interrupt Kiki's and Tombo's day at the beach with an invitation to tour the zeppelin. When Kiki turns it down one of the girls says something nasty. We cut to the car, for just a second, long enough to let one of the girl's friends tell her off for her rudeness. Kiki doesn't hear the comment, it has no bearing on the story, it's there for our benefit alone. The message is clear, people as individuals are often better then we take them as when they're part of a group. There's a quick shot in the credits of Kiki and the girl chatting, having apparently developed a friendship. Its the kind of touch that only Miyaziki would take the time to put in. And its just another example of what makes him so invaluable as a filmmaker.



No less lovingly portrayed is Miyaziki’s other great love, flight. The film is more or less devoted to flight, and as far as I’m concerned it’s the zenith of his love affair with the subject. The independence of Kiki’s flight lends it an intimacy allowing us to rise above the city or zip between its corridors with her. It’s a tribute to all things that break the laws of gravity really, birds, planes, balloons, even the absurd Wright Brothers like contraption Tombo’s built.



It all takes place in the stunning ideal Europe that Miyaziki portrayed so effectively in this period. This Mixture of Mediterranean Elegance, Parisian Cosmopolitanism surrounded by miles of Pastoral Countryside, is perhaps Miyaziki’s purest expression of the “Europe Of The Mind” which has been his muse. And its rendered in loving detail. Miyaziki’s artistry is of course unsurpassed and while he has maybe made films that are more visually arresting, I don’t think he’s ever topped himself here for sheer level of loving detail put into his world. In every frame of the film there is some detail that didn’t need to be there, moss growing between the paving stones of a courtyard, a carving done on the edge of the fountain, the reflection of passersby on the shop's glass window, boats bobbing the background. The flakes of bread on the bakery floor, that make Miyaziki’s world come to life.

Kiki’s Delivery Service has been since I’ve seen it, and yet remains a tonic of a film for me. I refreshing reminder of the beauty of life and the greatness of art both in its themes and in and of itself.

Princess Mononoke AKA How To Freak Out A Movie Geek With Signs Of His Mortality

I’ve recently moved from LA and with it the best revival theater scene in the world. Still the local theater has eased the pain somewhat with its excellent Palm Wednesday program. Last Wednesday I went and saw Princess Mononoke. In the same theater I saw it the first time. Over ten years ago.

It was a little freaky.

Princess Mononoke remains of course a freaking tremendous film. Seeing it on the big screen only increases it’s grandeur. The film is amazing for the first hour and then slips into the transcendent gear starting with San’s raid on Iron Town. Scene after adreniline pumping, eerily beautiful, just plain awe inspiring scene pass by. It doesn’t break it’s streak, never gives you time to breath, every new sequence just casually seers itself into your brain. Princess Mononoke isn’t just a movie I like, it’s what I like about movies.

That’s how it felt when I was fourteen. That’s how I feel at twenty four.

But still it’s an odd feeling watching a movie that I was young enough to see on it’s first run playing in a revival circuit. Just another reminder that I’m getting older. And that even a hand grenade like Fight Club is going to be turning freaking ten years old this year.

Brrr…

Since most of my taste is so retro (a professor once described me, with a depressing amount of accuracy as being 23 going on 55) I haven’t really had to deal with the fact that the stuff I like is getting old. For the most part it already is old. But I can’t run from it forever. The stubborn fact is that there are actually things made in past the date 1980 that I enjoy. And they’re not getting any younger. Soon even my current taste will probably be retro.

But you know what. That’s fine. That’s the whole point. If you’re lucky your taste is good enough that the stuff you love lasts. And you can start looking backwards at it and still see it clearly.

And if you’re extremely lucky you can sit in the same theater where you first felt the slap of something great and feel the pleasant shiver as you realize in ten years you’ve changed.

But not too much.