Howl’s Moving Castle
Howl’s Moving Castle is an anime movie worthy of the highest praise. Fantastic in its setting and realistic in the personalities of its characters, this show is completely delightful. Wizards and witches are powerful people, especially the feared Howl, whose mechanical castle roams the countryside, clinking and clanging; it is said that he seeks to devour the hearts of young women.
Sophie is a hatter that inherited her hat shop from her father, and works there with her mother and some friends and employees. One day after closing shop, as she’s going to her sister’s bakery, she meets a handsome and kind man; but not everything is what it seems, as he’s being followed by strange blob monsters. After a fantastic and magical escape, Howl drops Sophie off at the balcony of the second story of the bakery, and leaves.
The next day, a witch appears, and curses Sophie with instant and advanced old age. Prevented by the spell from telling anyone about her predicament, she begins making her way to the Wastes, the home of the witch. Along the way, she encounters a living scarecrow that she calls “Turnip-head” that leads her to the castle. Inside, she finds a dreary and dusty environment, and the fire demon, Calcifer. Thinking quickly, she makes an arrangement that allows her to stay in the castle as a maid. The castle, of course, is also the home of Howl himself, who’s personality is an eccentric mix of depressive, flamboyant, vain, and timid, and an apprentice that helps to handle Howl’s businesses under different pseudonyms in towns throughout the kingdom. War has begun with a neighboring kingdom, and Howl’s lifestyle is threatened.
As with most of the recent works of Miyazaki, the characters in this movie are deep and dynamic. Given their unusual circumstances, they react believably. Either by design or because of the original novel, I think that the characters are actually more realistic than, say, Spirited Away; I think Howl’s Moving Castle deserved the Oscar it didn’t get more than Spirited Away deserved the one it got, although they’re both excellent films. While no one is truly “evil” or completely “good” in Howl’s, there are definite villains here, people that want revenge on Howl, or to destroy him or bend him to their will. The motives behind these “wicked characters” are complex – duty, love, revenge – and one character that appears redeemed does some wicked and foolish things later.
The castle itself is a work of art, at once a beautiful mix of modern 3D graphics with a bit of an odd vector graphics looks to it; if Terry Gilliam worked on an anime, it’d have something like this in it. Both strangely organic and completely mechanical, the castle is also mysterious and terrifying.
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