Arnold
CibbuanoHowl's Moving Castle
September 7th 2006 08:30
Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
A few days ago I finally got around to watching Howl's Moving Castle. There's something about Hiyao Miyazaki's films that ignite the inner child in me... they transport me back to when I was 8 years old and enraptured in Saturday morning cartoons. Back to a time when I could lose myself completely in what I was watching and I didn't have any worries at all in the whole entire world. That's a pretty big feat for a filmmaker to achieve, I'm sure it's not just me that these films have affected... Miyazaki's films (and to a lesser extent, the other Studio Ghibli films) are pretty huge and well loved across the world. I'm kind of glad I didn't see these when I was a kid... it's left me something truly wonderful to discover in my adulthood.
Howl is a wizard, of sorts. He's dashing and appears heroic, but is actually quite vain and a little cowardly. He's a kid trapped in the body of a man. Sophie is a shy and dowdy seamstress who is caught up in Howl's world one night when walking home. The Witch of the Waste, an obscenely obese woman once scorned by Howl, takes exception to Sophie's contact with him and curses her. Sophie is turned into an old woman and cannot tell anyone what has happened to her. So she takes off to the Waste, home to Howl's moving castle, to try and break the curse.
As with most of the recent Studio Ghibli re-releases, all the characters are voiced by notable western actors. Lauren Bacall, Jean Simmons, Christian Bale and Billy Crystal all feature, and all do great voicework. Crystal in particular is well used as the fire demon Calcifer.
There's not much else for me to say about this film. I loved it so much. The ending felt a little too rushed and neat for me but it's a small thing to forgive when the rest of the film is so gorgeous and imaginative. Apparently it deviates from it's source material a fair bit (a book by Diana Wynn Jones), but if the author apparently doesn't mind I fail to see why I should! I'm so glad to hear that Miyazaki is once again coming out of retirement to work on a new film. I hope he never stops.
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