Howl's Moving Castle

So I'm going to give a huge disclaimer with this film. This is the first Hayao Miyazaki film I've ever watched. I was never exposed to films like this as a kid and up until now, I hadn't had an avenue where I could easily watch them. I always heard people mention them and I know there's a following. So much that when I got HBO Max and films like this one, my interest had already been peaked and it was immediately on my list. I don't know if Moving Castle is the right film to start off with if I'm a newbie to Miyazaki, but here we go!

Howl's Moving Castle is an animated fantasy film centered on a young woman named Sophie (I watched the English dub so she was voiced by Emily Mortimer). She is a hat maker in a small town in a country at war. At the start of the film, she encounters a wizard by the name of Howl (voiced by Christian Bale). This encounter sets the plot in motion as a witch called The Witch of the Waste (voiced by Lauren Bacall) casts a spell on Sophie turning her into an old woman (voiced by Jean Simmons). Part of the curse is that she can't tell anybody what happened to her. So she leaves the comforts of her home to find a way to lift the curse and encounters the Wizard Howl's moving castle, a structure of buildings on top of each other moving throughout the countryside, powered by a fire demon named Calcifer (voiced by Billy Crystal).

Sophie takes on the position of cleaning woman in the castle and a friendship/family begins with herself, Howl, Calcifer, Howl's apprentice Markl (voiced by Josh Hutcherson), and other unique characters that they eventually meet including a bouncing scarecrow Sophie calls Turniphead.

And honestly, a lot happens in this film. The basic plot is that Sophie is trying to lift the curse as she gets to know Howl and the people living in the castle. But there's also a war going on in the country with vague sides, and influences throughout the conflict that tie directly to Howl's own demons and curses (There were some influences from the War in Iraq that Miyazaki pulled into his writing of the script so that's seen heavily in the way the story is executed).

Again, as a newbie to Miyazaki's movies, I wanna figure out what the draw is and I have to say the best parts in my opinionwere the utilization of the castle and the magic in the world. On face value, the castle is actually kind of ugly and while uniquely designed, doesn't really give the impression of the imaginative abilities it has. But once you're in it, you can see the really imaginative ideas that were implemented in this story.

I also like the world that is created. A lot of it is kept vague, especially the sides in the wars and I imagine some of that is on purpose to promote that pacifist theme of the film, but it was something I do wish they would have explored a little bit more because it had me on the hook for a lot of the film.

I think where the film falters for me is that it tries to do so much in one film that sometimes certain story elements just get glazed over or resolved in super weird ways.

For example, the starting premise of the movie is that Sophie is cursed by the Witch of the Waste and she's gotta find a way to lift that curse. Okay, simple premise.

But without giving too much away, at a certain point lifting that curse is barely a thing anymore and its not totally clear how we transitioned into a massive war with super vague sides, and a love story that feels super rushed. There's no point where the curse is on and then its off, and I could see it being connected to Sophie's self image, but I never felt like we got to know Sophie that much before the curse occurred.

I do wonder if some of it has to do with the translation and this is one of those areas where I am super ignorant to what I could be missing, but all of that isn't even getting into how confusing of a character Howl is as well as the relationship that forms between him and Sophie and other characters in the movie.

I mean at first he's a smooth confidence blonde mysterious guy grabbing women off the street but everyone thinks he eats women's hearts or something. Then he's this cowardly emo kid who turns into a weird green goo once, then he's a bird man who loses that emo streak half way through the film.

And the romance is really rushed. I get it, it's 2004 and you've got two attractive looking characters on screen, no duh they're gonna be the love interests, but it feels very rushed, especially while I'm waiting for plot points at the start of the movie like Sophie figuring out how to lift her curse still haven't been resolved.

I have no issue with putting an anti-war message in your movie, but finish your plate first before you start digging into seconds. Because of this, the movie kind of meanders at times and it isn't really clear what the end goal, especially since the characters kind of seem to forget the end goes they started with.

The second half of the movie is where things really start to spiral out of control for me and I was looking at the clock saying, how're they going to wrap this up in 12 minutes?

Overall, I think I can get some of the appeal of this film in that it is visually nice to look at and there are some really interesting and imaginative ideas that go into the world this takes place in.

I can understand if someone grew up with these films or enjoy them for the visuals and calming music and visuals.

 The magic and concepts are good, but the characters and story is kind of all over the place. Again, I'm coming at this from a very new perspective so I don't know if this movie even represents Miazaki films that well and I'd love to hear some other perspectives on it. The overall is that the film didn't do a whole lot for me. I'm definitely going to check out other Miyazaki films so I won't let this be my end all of his movies.

But those were my thoughts on Howl's Moving Castle. What did you think? As a newbie to all of this, is there something I'm missing? Tell me your thoughts below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog!

Thanks for reading!