Howl's Moving Castle is a film I saw when I saw very into anime, whilst I am no longer a massive anime or manga fan I have a lot of love for this wonderful fairytale masterpiece. I think the word fairytale is the best way to describe Howl's Moving Castle, its the only way to sum up Miyazaki's fantastical vision of magic, monsters, demons and all other supernatural things that are richly involved in HMC. Not only that but its the only way to describe the journey Sophie goes through from start to finish the narrative the characters and the visuals SCREAM fairytale, and its positively wonderful!
I love Howl, he is one of my all time favourite heroes, he is cool, dark a romantic and a narcissistic man with the ability to turn into a giant bird thing. Behind all of that he has doubts and fears and works to overcome his problem with running away from confrontation at every possible time. Sophie the more idealistic character of the two inspires Howl to stand and fight whether it be in some unnamed war or against the wicked witch of waste it is Sophie that inspires him to fight as howl rather than hiding behind his multiple personas. I think this is the best character development of the story and whilst I like all of the characters in the odd family of the castle, all of the other struggles are more related to narrative plot rather than personal character development.
Obviously the film is visually beautiful as always with studio ghibli however I think the castle door being multiple locations and the moving castle itself give the film the opportunity to explore a large range of visual images, the city docks, the open field and the battle scorched skies being some of my favourite animated images ever. There are a lot of Miyazaki's usual themes woven in as with most studio ghibli films, Love beating all for example and breaking curses. Howl's refusal to be an official force in the war relates to Miyazaki's pacifism and Howl's wings are the epitome of flight that is in so many of Miyazaki's films. The theme of water is also prevelant in Howl's Moving Castle and with the rest of the themes HMC fits nicely in the Ghibli collection.
This and The Cat Returns are my two favourite StudioGhibli films and if for nothing else than the visual pleasure I recommend Howl's Moving Castle.
8/10
I love Howl, he is one of my all time favourite heroes, he is cool, dark a romantic and a narcissistic man with the ability to turn into a giant bird thing. Behind all of that he has doubts and fears and works to overcome his problem with running away from confrontation at every possible time. Sophie the more idealistic character of the two inspires Howl to stand and fight whether it be in some unnamed war or against the wicked witch of waste it is Sophie that inspires him to fight as howl rather than hiding behind his multiple personas. I think this is the best character development of the story and whilst I like all of the characters in the odd family of the castle, all of the other struggles are more related to narrative plot rather than personal character development.
Obviously the film is visually beautiful as always with studio ghibli however I think the castle door being multiple locations and the moving castle itself give the film the opportunity to explore a large range of visual images, the city docks, the open field and the battle scorched skies being some of my favourite animated images ever. There are a lot of Miyazaki's usual themes woven in as with most studio ghibli films, Love beating all for example and breaking curses. Howl's refusal to be an official force in the war relates to Miyazaki's pacifism and Howl's wings are the epitome of flight that is in so many of Miyazaki's films. The theme of water is also prevelant in Howl's Moving Castle and with the rest of the themes HMC fits nicely in the Ghibli collection.
This and The Cat Returns are my two favourite StudioGhibli films and if for nothing else than the visual pleasure I recommend Howl's Moving Castle.
8/10
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