Peering Into the Clouds: Castle in the Sky Bridging Cultures
There are few films that defy gravity in the ways that Castle in the Sky does.
Studio Ghibli’s first animated feature film enthralls the viewer from the moment it flashes to life on screen, fixating on a girl in a blue dress as she plummets down to Earth from the clouds. A sprawling landscape of twinkling lights, ancient ruins, and strange mechanical structures come into view, one after the other, as we follow her descent into the arms of a bewildered miner boy. As the film progresses, more of the world within the film introduces itself through the characters and picturesque setting. Unmistakably Welsh mining towns and grass fields; grand German airships and steam locomotives; rustic Babylonian cities embedded in cliffs; and Hindu and Egyptian murals all comprise an alternate-reality Japan embellished with futuristic steampunk technology. Drawing some parallels with 18th-century novel Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, Castle in the Sky transcends national borders in both depiction and inspiration.
Released in 1986, the heyday of Japan’s miraculous post-war economic prosperity, the film envisions a world where East and West blends naturally in coexistence with grand, futuristic mechanical machines — a world we are still approaching today as the effects of globalization draw nations closer together. America in particular resonates with several themes shown in the movie. The main characters’ search for the eponymous lost city — the wondrous “castle in the sky” — and their flight from greedy villainous pursuers while doing so draws parallels to the all-too-American thrills for discovery and adventure. The industrial backdrop of underground mines, railroad tracks, and even the addition of pirates and scheming government officials, harks back to a developing 19th-century America, whose people even now are fascinated by Pirates of the Caribbean or The Lone Ranger. Castle in the Sky’s influence was such that Disney embellished its later films, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, WALL-E, and Up, with similar elements.
More than anything, the bridge across borders is built upon the connection that the audience forges with the characters themselves. The relentless dedication with which the two children search for and protect each other, the connection between humility and heroism embodied in the earnest miner boy, and their desperate moral struggle with armed military agents translate easily to American values and experiences as a whole. American affinity with moral wholesomeness reflected in the main characters can trace its roots to its own Puritan beginnings, its fascination with “simple country dwellers” and coal miners, and general mistrust of government from its experiences with Vietnam and Iraq all contribute to generating a sense of kinship and understanding that close the foreign gap. These intersections between cultural values generate appeal because unlike more technical aspects of films, transnational experiences do not get lost in translation.
Incorporating the visions, hopes, and dreams of a then-developing Japan, the film perhaps struck a chord with immigrants and ethnic minorities who likewise toiled in pursuit of the American Dream. The impact on any viewer, Japanese or American, is powerful enough to leave one, too, searching for that castle in the sky.
Garth Franklin, et al. “Review: ‘Castle in the Sky.’” Dark Horizons, 1 Apr. 2005, www.darkhorizons.com/review-castle-in-the-sky/.
Robinson, Tasha. “Studio Ghibli’s First Film, Castle in the Sky, Is like No Hayao Miyazaki Film That Followed.” Polygon, Polygon, 25 May 2020, www.polygon.com/animation-cartoons/2020/5/25/21269323/castle-in-the-sky-studio-ghibli-movies-hayao-miyazaki-villains-explained.
