Hayao Miyazaki is one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema. His contributions to animation have been essential for the evolution of that medium. In 1985, after the success of Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), with colleagues Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki, he founded what we today know as Studio Ghibli, one of the most influential animation studios of the industry. Nonetheless, Miyazaki’s career goes way back before Studio Ghibli and his, in my opinion, magnum opus Spirited Away (2001).
During the 1960s, he worked as an in-between artist, chief animator, concept artist, scene designer, and storyboard artist for various projects in Toei Animation, some of those projects being supervised by Takahata. In the early 70s, he moved to A-Pro where he developed better as an animator for TV series and some films and began his career as a writer. After a few gigs here and there, Miyazaki finally got his first shot at directing a feature film. That film premiered in 1979 and it was based on a Manga and consequent anime series, for which Miyazaki worked during his tenure in A-Pro.
The film was Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro. It is the second film of a large movie franchise, that continued until the early 2000s. And keeps getting remade and rebooted because of how popular it is. This one tells the story of the time Lupin III and his faithful companion Daisuke travel to the small country of Cagliostro. There they are meant to find the place where the counterfeit money they found at the beginning of the film came from.
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The story also turns into a retrospect of Lupin’s life, since one of his first missions, and one of the most dangerous, was done in the Castle of Cagliostro. At first he’s reluctant to remember, but when he meets Clarisse d’Cagliostro, all memories seem to come back.
Although Lupin III is way before its time, his character and the story reminded me a lot of the Mission: Impossible movies franchise. The character of Lupin has that weird charm, bravery, and risk behavior as Ethan Hunt. There’s even a scene in this movie that I’m pretty sure Christopher McQuarrie used as inspiration for that infamous underwater sequence in Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015).
Partners in crime like Daisuke, Goemon the Samurai, and Fujiko reminds me of Luther, Benji, and Ilsa Faust. Lupin is also being followed by a government agency, something that has happened in the last two M:I films. Parallelisms stop when we compare Hunt’s job with Lupin’s, where the first is a special agent that protects the world from dangerous criminals while the second is a professional thief with a good heart. It’s interesting to see the influence this anime film has had in another consequential films throughout the years.
The Castle of Cagliostro also serves as base for Miyazaki’s groundwork. Here we begin to see his style, both artistically and narratively. As an artist, we can appreciate his love for great landscapes, something Miyazaki is well-known for. We can also see an amazing display of animation in action, with lots of action sequences that in real life can never be performed.
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The models of the characters coincide with the animation style he mostly used during the 80s and early 90s. We can see a little of Nausicaä in Clarisse, for example. It is very fascinating to watch where everything began for one of the most acclaimed directors in animation and how much he has evolved as an artist. He’s an example of professional growth in all the sense of the word. This also applies to his narrative structure and themes.
Unlike the many films that came afterwards, The Castle of Cagliostro lacks those themes that characterize Miyazaki’s films. Like a strong and independent (usually lead) female character, nature, and the power of consequences. I assume it’s because Lupin III is not an original idea of the director that this happened. But it is still surprising not seeing them present here, since that what’s made him unique compared to others animation, and film in general, directors.
Clarisse, the main female character in this story, is basically a damsel in distress. There’s a scene near the end of the film where she says something to Lupin that made me cringe a lot because of how sexist and downgrading to women it might appear. Fortunately, Miyazaki learned from this and made sure his next female characters were better written and better represented. Characters like Nausicaä, Kiki, Princess Mononoke, and Chihiro, to mention some, have become icons of cinema and are models for everyone to follow.
The nature aspect is barely touched in this film too. There’s a homage to history conservation though, which is something Miyazaki also deals with a lot in his films. But is only in the end when we learn this, making it a little bit like a side note. Movies like Princess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away, and other Ghibli films from his colleagues, like Takahata’s Pom Poko (1994), deal with the conservation of nature much better.
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The story is also very simple and easy to follow. The former being uncharacteristic of Miyazaki, since he has done more complex stories afterwards. The latter is true of almost all his films. The fast pace sensation is something that has always been part of Miyazaki’s filmography, being more evident in his Oscar winning film, Spirited Away, but here was the beginning of it all.
Overall, The Castle of Cagliostro is an entertaining film, that lacks certain depth narratively. It compensates this with groundbreaking animation and an adventure that most kids and anime lovers will indeed love. What I like most about the film is to see the roots of Miyazaki’s work before he was known around the world. To see how he began and became the renowned director he is today. How this work helped him create the wonderful worlds we enjoy now as part of Studio Ghibli, and the influence he has become to other filmmakers. If it weren’t for this opportunity and the success this film brought him, we would have never had the honor of watching the animation master Miyazaki is.
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