Ani-Me #20: LUPIN III and the Impossible Joy of The Suave Idiot (Patreon)

Note: I’m going to try and fit in Bloodlust by the end of the month because I do really want to watch a horror-ish anime for spooky season (and maybe even Tale of Princess Kaguya if I have time before that), but for now, it’s time for the one y’all voted for…

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“A debut movie? Wow, this Miyazaki guy will be going places!”

I kid, I kid. Though there’s an unquestionably fun sense of discovery that comes with jumping into something you know absolutely nothing about. Such was the case with Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro. Sure, I’d seen the clip of the car chase. And I’d even seen every other Miyazaki movie, too. But I stayed away from this one because I knew it was part of a larger series or something (and given his name, I genuinely thought it was the third entry in the series. Ha). Now I know there was another film and series and manga, of course. But more importantly, I know that none of this is an obstacle to the joy of diving right into this particular film.

Because it is the kind of movie that is so obviously and completely great that it makes me want to speak in criticism cliches. To tell you that “I was grinning ear to ear from start to finish.” That “it's a masterful debut from someone whose voice seems fully formed.” And that “it’s the very reason we go to the movies.” Shit like that. Because the film really is that wildly entertaining. Something that feels more in line with the Chaplin and Keaton tradition of cinematic storytelling in that they are basically 150 gags lined up on top of each other. And like those storytellers, Miyazaki always seems to find the little fun way to better express an image or a moment. It’s the way the loose money showers out of the cars. The way the cigarettes are piled high in the dash. The way Lupin still sits on top of the car as it gets jacked. It’s knowing that you can start a seemingly random chase scene just by seeing a woman in a wedding dress escaping a bunch of mobsters, which might be one of the better intro macguffins I’ve ever seen. Just as the gag of Lupin going a little too far and trying to swim back up the waterfall is one of my favorite ever, too. It’s an embarrassment of riches.

But the thing that truly sticks with me is the character himself.

Perhaps because Lupin so squarely taps into something I’ve been thinking and writing about for years now which is the “the spectrum of capability” and that continued worry that so many Hollywood action leads just want to present as the most capable and infallible heroes ever (with nary a dramatic set-back that’s their fault). I mean, we saw the ballyhoo when it was revealed that The Rock literally has in his contract that can’t lose an on-screen fight. On this exact subject, I’ve been listening to this season of Blank Check and during the Big Trouble In Little China episode (which they did with Paul Scheer and Jason Mantzoukas) they were talking about the characterization of Jack Burton. Specifically, how few protagonists are as comically incapable as him. Like, Burton’s a bumbling idiot with nary a positive impact to the entire story, but it’s just part of what makes him so damn entertaining. It’s similar to the comic fallibility of Indiana Jones, though Ford’s character is a little bit more capable. Mantzoukas even joked that if Jack Burton had to do the “pull out the gun” moment in Raiders, he would smile cockily, but would then miss his shot and then have to run away screaming. It’s a funny notion, but it perfectly exemplifies how all heroes have a place on the spectrum of capability (and something that makes the idea of casting The Rock in the possible Big Trouble sequel so weird, because he’s literally on the other side of the capability spectrum).

I explain all this because Lupin is constantly oscillating back and forth between suave and bumbling that he lands smack dab in the middle of the spectrum of the capability chart. Which I find delightful. It’s also silly for me to realize what is probably so obvious to many of you, but I went “ohhhhhh, a lot of Spike Spiegel comes from this, huh?” But again, this is the joyful discovery of going through anime for the first time and seeing all these connections and influences. It also makes me realize how much this “suave idiot” archetype feels part of a grander tradition of asian cinema at large. I mean, Jackie Chan feels a bit more of an open hearted rube on the spectrum, and Lupin / Spike actually reminds me more of the work of Stephen Chow. And I realize how this genuinely might be one of my favorite archetypes. Because here’s this hero Lupin who is impossibly smooth. Someone who can steal and evade outwit with effortless guile, but constantly letting his overconfidence make him miss details put him in these little comic mix-ups. It’s like Lupin is always riding this line of chaos and control. And you realize how much this makes for a wonderful dramatic engine for a movie. Because it's exactly how you create comedic tension when you go from gag to gag, because you genuinely don't know if it will work beautifully or horribly.

And as you ride that tension throughout the movie, Miyzaki always hits you with these little flourishes of genuine humanity. Sometimes it’s the perfect expression of comic ennui with lines like, “if it's so scary, I’m going to sleep.” Sometimes it's genuinely stark applications of politics (like how it’s taking dead aim at the international financial policies of small tax haven countries like Monaco). Sometimes it's the way it underplays the grand character moments. Like the big “reveal” of Lupin’s memory with Clarisse is that she simply offered him a glass of water when he was ailing, which is something he had even forgotten about until now. Similarly, there’s the big reveal of the roman ruins, which Lupin so humanely knows is “a treasure for all mankind, too big for my pocket.” Even the film’s evocation of his goodbye with Clarisse has so much grace. Lupin’s life is the chase. He can’t bring someone into the high-stakes game he’s forever trapped in, just as he can’t live any other way. It’s a sentiment I’ve seen time and time again in movies, but rarely seen so effectively done. And one that ended up feeling weirdly poignant to me in this moment.

Because the older I get, the more I realize the fleeting nature of so, so many things. This may seem like a weird seque, but I’ve kind of still been processing the loss of Norm Macdonald. He was an enormously complicated person who had the ability to make me laugh like few other people on the planet. He was also a gambling addict. Something Norm talked about constantly in his stand-up and writing. But in interviews he would talk about the somewhat low-stakes nature of his cycle. Because he would gamble, lose everything he had, then just go do stand-up at the casino, take the payment money and go back to the tables. In one way, it’s so easy to see the crippling nature of this addiction if he had grander debts or responsibilities. But he purposely tried to avoid a lot of those. And to him, it was just all a part of how he could always start from zero, utterly unattached to the gains. There is an incredible privilege to being able to do this, no doubt. But the notion also hits something deeper as to why he did it.

Artie Lang told one particular story where they won BIG at the casinos and they went to celebrate by the shore. I’m not sure of the timeline, but Norm was perhaps even aware that he was sick at the time. But Norm took all his massive winnings and threw it all into the ocean, much to everyone’s shock. He didn’t actually care about the money. It seems like something out of a movie, something easy to romanticize, but this was a real thing that happened. And there's this kind of terrifying and stark freedom that comes with somehow embracing that ideology. It’s the idea that you can play “the game” of life in so many ways and one day, but one day the game will stop. The fear of that stopping prevents so many people from ever venturing into such a scary way of living. But for people like Norm, the reason you play is precisely because it will stop anyway, and the notion of never having risked a thing is infinitely scarier. Or I don’t know, maybe opening yourself up to attachment and roots IS scarier for someone like that. I can’t say. I just know a lot of us probably need to be nudged one way or the other on that particular spectrum.

And I know I thought all of this as I watched Lupin III speeding off in the film’s final frames. How so many of these games and gamesmanship were part of some inherent dalliance to life. One where titles, treasures, and lost loves are just a part of all things static - and have absolutely nothing on the insatiable, giddy movements of life itself. And how sometimes…

It’s good to be reminded of that.

<3HULK