Howl's Moving Castle

Hayao Miyazaki is almost universally acclaimed as the leading animator of the day. If you want to rent some movies or buy some DVD's in preparation for viewing this movie, I'd recommended Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, and of those two, I'd say the latter is the one to get if you can get only one.

Miyazaki still does movies based on hand-drawn and -painted cels, not computer animation. But that isn't the real distinction between him and what others are doing: It's his fiercely personal and eccentric visual conceptions. He's also a master of the use of color.

Some people are calling Howl's Moving Castle his masterpiece. It's a great movie, but I'll stick with Spirited Away and if you like action, Princess Mononoke has more of that.

The story is of a girl named Sophie who is turned into an old woman by The Witch of the Waste. Sofi, unable to face her family and looking for a counterspell, heads off into the Waste. On her way, she meets a scarecrow who helps her by finding her shelter away from an impending storm. This shelter turns out to be the moving castle of a wizard named Howl. The castle would be very difficult to describe, so click HERE for an image of the castle.

The castle is mechanical with a wooden exterior. It walks around on four legs, and is powered by a cursed fire demon named Calcifer. As Sophie (still in the form of an old woman) makes a place for herself in the castle, she becomes more respected and is given more important duties.

The owner of the castle, a young wizard named Howl, is tortured by a moral conflict between his duty to assist the King in a war against a neighboring country who supposedly has kidnapped or killed the Prince, and his belief that the war is wrong and will result in ruin for his country.

That's the setup and I'll tell you no more, though I think you can see a happy ending coming. One doesn't go to a Miyazaki movie so much for the stories as for the animation, and you won't be disappointed. The movie has a distinctive look, which is quite different from the other two aforementioned movies. The visuals are stunning and the voices are done quite well.

If you don't catch it in the theater (by far the best way to see it), be sure to rent it.