Yamashita’s foray into anime came a bit slowly.
“As a kid, I would watch different animations without really realizing that it was this incredible medium,” Yamashita told Polygon through a translator. That all changed when he was in high school. ‘I just happened to see it The castle of Cagliostroand that really made me aware that you can really have a fantastically beautiful and excellent film.
It was “coincidentally” directed by Hayao Miyazaki, with whom Yamashita went on to work closely, beginning with a more direct relationship on Howls Moving castle. To say that this job was a dream come true for him would be putting it mildly. The castle of Cagliostro was the catalyst for him to see what animation could be.
“I thought, this shows that animation can be a lot of fun,” says Yamashita. “And even with simple lines we could express so much in terms of how we can show movement, how we can show animation.”
Yamashita credits the film’s many car chases with capturing his attention – with some special love for the film’s beginning. “That really increased my excitement (…) when I saw the chase, I just thought it was amazing that that could be done through such a simple animation.”
That makes sense. It’s hard to remember a time when Miyazaki was simply an artist waiting in line to make the leap from working for an animation studio to directing (by taking on the third film to emerge from a popular anime). But The castle of Cagliostro is exactly that; Miyazaki hones his skills by painting with someone else’s palette. Miyazaki took liberties with the character, going from the traditional ruthless type modeled after Arsène Lupin to a madman who appears to be all limbs and luck. This Lupine’s life is far from glamorous, seemingly based on the modest yellow Fiat and approaching the waitress mischievously.
But the result is frenetic: vibrant animation that feels familiar and simple, creative in its sometimes physics-challenging approach, and full of care for the details that make the world seem alive and lived in, even if the action can sometimes seem out of place. stocky. The car chases are good enough. There is a persistent rumor that Steven Spielberg proclaimed the film ‘one of the greatest adventure films of all time’ after its screening in Cannes. Lupine struggling to swim up an aqueduct is the kind of visceral animation that you can laugh at and feel in your joints. The easy fusion of styles and influences (both for Miyazaki and for the medium itself) makes it clear how this simple film could inspire a whole wave of animators and animators.
Even now, The castle of Cagliostro is something that sticks with Yamashita. “There are a lot of good films, interesting films – but if I think about what I really enjoyed watching, I would probably say it was the Cagliostro Castle. (It’s) something that really struck me when I first saw it as a young person,” Yamashita. “Because I have taken on a number of directing roles myself. Actually looking or thinking The castle of Cagliostro depresses me! Because I can’t make a movie that’s that interesting, that good, that fun. So in a way, my goal is to make a good movie, and I feel like it’s my rival to make that movie. But I feel like I can’t reach it.”
Lupine III: The Castle of Cagliostro streams for free with a library card on Hoopla, and is available for digital rental or purchase on Amazon and Apple TV.