Howl's Moving Castle
December 30th 2007 23:54
Category: Videos, Television
Based on the novel by: Diana Wynne Jones.
Director: Hayao Miyazaki.
Screenplay by: Hayao Miyazaki.
Producer: Toshio Suzuki.
Starring: Christian Bale (Howl), Lauren Bacall (The Witch of the Waste), Jean Simmons (Grandma Sophie), Blythe Danner (Madame Suliman), Emily Mortimer (Young Sophie), Josh Hutcherson (Markl) and Billy Crystal (Calcifer).
Produced by: 2004 Studio Ghibli.
Released by: Madman Entertainment.
Running Time: 115 minutes. Rating: PG.
It was whilst watching another anime flick around at a friends place several years ago that I first caught a glimpse of the trailer for this film. Watching that trailer I was certainly impressed by the animation but puzzled as to just what exactly it was all about, this is the sad thing about some trailers they hint a lot but don’t really give an idea or clue as to what to expect from a particular film. About all I could guess was that the film involved some dude called Howl and his moving castle that roamed about the countryside, several years later on down the track I finally managed to get to see the movie itself. SBS screened this film on Christmas Day at around 9.15 pm which is pretty much a prime time slot for something like this; unfortunately that wasn’t when I managed to watch it. No I rented Howl from a local video shop about two days later after it had been shown on SBS. The good thing is I was finally able to get some idea of what precisely it was all about.
On the surface Howl’s Moving Castle looks to be a sort of unrequited teenage romance with the main protagonist of the movie, Sophie, falling in love with the title character, Howl. Fortunately for the viewing audience Howl’s Moving Castle is a lot more than just the musings of a love sick teenage girl who is feeling all angsty about not being beautiful etc; no like any other Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki production the viewer is given far more substantial fare. If anything Howl could be called a fairy tale film with a strong dose of romance, seasoned with elements of political intrigue, war, destruction and the nature of wizards/witches and the magic they use all thrown in for good measure. This cornucopia of ingredients are blended together to give a well rounded anime film as you would expect from Studio Ghibli and one of its founders, Mr Miyazaki.
The drama begins in the town of Market Chipping in the land of Ingary, where Sophie lives, making her way in the world in a hat makers shop in which she also lives. The day in which events begin to unfold has a carnival atmosphere, despite the fact that it seems there is an impending war looming over the disappearance of a missing prince. Airships fly overhead bearing banners and everywhere can be seen the presence of soldiers and a military build-up. Everything looks so late nineteenth, early twentieth century with an element of the fantastic in the presence of the airships. The town in which Sophie lives also looks like some Alpine community tucked away in the corner of Austria or Switzerland, such however is not the case. Howl is a movie that is set in world that bears some similarity with that of our own but that is the only real resemblance, like Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings or Tatooine in Star Wars this is a unique place which has been brought to life through the efforts of its creator and the filmmakers.
On this day once Sophie has finished up her work in the hat makers she decides to go and visit her sister Lettie who works in a bakery. En route our heroine runs into a couple of soldiers who seem to take a decidedly ungallant shine to her, before things get out of hand a mysterious and handsome blonde haired stranger appears to help her out of this predicament and then whisks her on her way to the bakery where her sister works. But getting away from two lecherous soldiers is the least of Sophie’s problems as various other creatures also seem to be interested in the stranger and inadvertently by being helped by him she has become entwined in his problems. Only when she returns to the hat makers does she begin to grasp the actual seriousness of the situation in which she has become involved, after all witches and wizards are common in this world and Sophie through the events just passed has drawn the attention of the Witch of the Waste. And as a result the Witch decides that Sophie needs to be taught a lesson for getting involved in affairs that are not hers to meddle in; she curses the young girl with premature aging turning her into a wrinkled old woman.
At first Sophie feels that the situation is all some kind of bad dream and makes her way upstairs to her bedroom above the shop. Waking up in the morning she realises that all is definitely not well and some how she needs to find the means to reverse the curse of the Witch. Fortunately there is some means of doing just this, in the hillsides surrounding the town moves the castle of the wizard Howl, a potent worker of magic if one with a somewhat notorious reputation. It is whispered that he lost his heart long ago and now consumes the hearts of beautiful young girls. As far as Sophie is concerned this shouldn’t be too much of a problem for her as she never considered herself beautiful and now she is an old woman. Taking some supplies from the kitchen and a bag to carry them in she sets off on her quest to find the moving castle and its enigmatic, notorious landlord, Howl. En route to finding her objective she encounters a wandering scarecrow whom she helps out of a particularly troublesome predicament, the poor fellow having fallen upside down in a bush. Not knowing any other name to call him by, and the fact that his head is made from a turnip the vegetable that she likes the least Sophie ends up calling him Turniphead. As it turns out Turniphead happens to be in a similar condition to Sophie, he’s been enchanted to be a scarecrow, it hasn’t been a conscious career move on his part.
All in all Howl’s Moving Castle is a very touching and finely crafted piece of cinematography; it certainly deserved being nominated in the Academy Awards Best Animated Feature category for 2005 and in my own humble opinion should have probably gotten the award. Frankly it has all the features that any great film needs, a good insightful story, good acting and an appeal that reaches across generations, this is a film that can attract something in all of us regardless of whether we’re a child of ten or a grown adult of fifty six. It just goes to show that both Studio Ghibli and Mr Miyazaki know what their doing whenever they take up a particular project and so far I have yet to see any of their works that fails to entrance and entertain. Once again kudos should also go to the programming staff at the SBS network for scheduling this film to air on Christmas Day at a prime time slot during the evening; I sincerely feel that it would have been more entertaining than a repeat of Grey’s Anatomy, You’ve Got Mail and the Panel’s Christmas Wrap. If you didn’t manage to see it on television like me there is always the DVD version that can no doubt be found at your local video shop, probably in the kids section, its well worth making an effort to track down and enjoy watching on a quite afternoon or evening.
Director: Hayao Miyazaki.
Screenplay by: Hayao Miyazaki.
Producer: Toshio Suzuki.
Starring: Christian Bale (Howl), Lauren Bacall (The Witch of the Waste), Jean Simmons (Grandma Sophie), Blythe Danner (Madame Suliman), Emily Mortimer (Young Sophie), Josh Hutcherson (Markl) and Billy Crystal (Calcifer).
Produced by: 2004 Studio Ghibli.
Released by: Madman Entertainment.
Running Time: 115 minutes. Rating: PG.
It was whilst watching another anime flick around at a friends place several years ago that I first caught a glimpse of the trailer for this film. Watching that trailer I was certainly impressed by the animation but puzzled as to just what exactly it was all about, this is the sad thing about some trailers they hint a lot but don’t really give an idea or clue as to what to expect from a particular film. About all I could guess was that the film involved some dude called Howl and his moving castle that roamed about the countryside, several years later on down the track I finally managed to get to see the movie itself. SBS screened this film on Christmas Day at around 9.15 pm which is pretty much a prime time slot for something like this; unfortunately that wasn’t when I managed to watch it. No I rented Howl from a local video shop about two days later after it had been shown on SBS. The good thing is I was finally able to get some idea of what precisely it was all about.
On this day once Sophie has finished up her work in the hat makers she decides to go and visit her sister Lettie who works in a bakery. En route our heroine runs into a couple of soldiers who seem to take a decidedly ungallant shine to her, before things get out of hand a mysterious and handsome blonde haired stranger appears to help her out of this predicament and then whisks her on her way to the bakery where her sister works. But getting away from two lecherous soldiers is the least of Sophie’s problems as various other creatures also seem to be interested in the stranger and inadvertently by being helped by him she has become entwined in his problems. Only when she returns to the hat makers does she begin to grasp the actual seriousness of the situation in which she has become involved, after all witches and wizards are common in this world and Sophie through the events just passed has drawn the attention of the Witch of the Waste. And as a result the Witch decides that Sophie needs to be taught a lesson for getting involved in affairs that are not hers to meddle in; she curses the young girl with premature aging turning her into a wrinkled old woman.
At first Sophie feels that the situation is all some kind of bad dream and makes her way upstairs to her bedroom above the shop. Waking up in the morning she realises that all is definitely not well and some how she needs to find the means to reverse the curse of the Witch. Fortunately there is some means of doing just this, in the hillsides surrounding the town moves the castle of the wizard Howl, a potent worker of magic if one with a somewhat notorious reputation. It is whispered that he lost his heart long ago and now consumes the hearts of beautiful young girls. As far as Sophie is concerned this shouldn’t be too much of a problem for her as she never considered herself beautiful and now she is an old woman. Taking some supplies from the kitchen and a bag to carry them in she sets off on her quest to find the moving castle and its enigmatic, notorious landlord, Howl. En route to finding her objective she encounters a wandering scarecrow whom she helps out of a particularly troublesome predicament, the poor fellow having fallen upside down in a bush. Not knowing any other name to call him by, and the fact that his head is made from a turnip the vegetable that she likes the least Sophie ends up calling him Turniphead. As it turns out Turniphead happens to be in a similar condition to Sophie, he’s been enchanted to be a scarecrow, it hasn’t been a conscious career move on his part.
All in all Howl’s Moving Castle is a very touching and finely crafted piece of cinematography; it certainly deserved being nominated in the Academy Awards Best Animated Feature category for 2005 and in my own humble opinion should have probably gotten the award. Frankly it has all the features that any great film needs, a good insightful story, good acting and an appeal that reaches across generations, this is a film that can attract something in all of us regardless of whether we’re a child of ten or a grown adult of fifty six. It just goes to show that both Studio Ghibli and Mr Miyazaki know what their doing whenever they take up a particular project and so far I have yet to see any of their works that fails to entrance and entertain. Once again kudos should also go to the programming staff at the SBS network for scheduling this film to air on Christmas Day at a prime time slot during the evening; I sincerely feel that it would have been more entertaining than a repeat of Grey’s Anatomy, You’ve Got Mail and the Panel’s Christmas Wrap. If you didn’t manage to see it on television like me there is always the DVD version that can no doubt be found at your local video shop, probably in the kids section, its well worth making an effort to track down and enjoy watching on a quite afternoon or evening.
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