Movie Review

Howl's Moving Castle

A Movie Review By Susan Frome

Animated features may not be your cup of tea (or they may be your favorites), but "Howl's Moving Castle" is exceptionally good, even wonderful at times, and certainly worth seeing. It is written and directed by Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones. The dubbed voices are in English, starring the incomparable Jean Simmons and Lauren Bacall with Christian Bale as Howl and Emily Mortimer as Young Sophie.

Mr. Miyazaki is considered by many critics as master of the animated film; his other notable efforts are "Princess Mononoke," "My Neighbor Totoro," and "Spirited Away." As can be seen in his latest venture, his imagery is amazingly imaginative and invitingly lovely. There are scenes of war and violence, but nothing like our modern American examples. From the opening scene where Sophie, a sweet maiden hat maker in some European town in the 19th century, is seen working in a shop, we are immediately drawn into this fairytale just as if we were children again. It looks like a book that has just been opened and we're allowed to enter into the first page. In this respect, it is very like an early Disney (who by the way released this picture).

We learn quickly that these characters live in a place we recognize but it is also a place of wizards, witchery, and magic spells. Mostly the spells are bad spells. One of the young wizards out and about is Howl, a very good-looking blond young man who can turn himself into many things, especially a flying hawk of some kind. Almost immediately he has to rescue Sophie as she is accosted by two soldiers in an alleyway. Quickly he lifts her up, they rise to the sky, and fly out of harm's way. It's nice to have a friend like Howl. And Sophie soon falls in love with him.

It turns out that Howl lives in a moving castle, a wild contraption held together by luck, which sits on long chicken legs that carry it around the countryside. This "structure" is really unusual and lots of fun to watch and discover how it works. Sophie, unfortunately, has come under the spell of a terrible witch, the Witch of the Waste, who has caused Sophie to become 90 years old. No longer young and pretty, she is now bent over, white haired, with a scary face. She leaves town, wanders about, gets help from a one-legged, hopping Scarecrow, and finally comes to the castle and is allowed inside. Here, she takes over as a house-cleaner and, eventually, Howl's caretaker.

But this is only the beginning. Several other spells are going on, threats of new ones, war is taking place back in the town, Howl undergoes wild and terrible times, inside and outside of himself, etc. War is definitely a theme to be dealt with here - it is shown as an obvious very bad choice on the part of the government. Somehow in this magical land of yesteryear and the future, countries can unleash flying machines that drop bombs and shoot laser-like missals on neighboring cities for no other purpose than the amusement of soft-headed toy-solder-like kings. Loyalty and love turn out to be far better ideals.

Along the way, there are several references to other stories and characters. For example, The Witch of the Waste sounds a lot like the Witch of the West in "The Wizard of Oz," as well as a little dog who enters the picture who is not unlike Toto, and the friendly Scarecrow who literally saves Sophie and friends at times - and seems Christ-like, as well. Often, young Sophie looks like Alice in Wonderland in her light blue dress and white apron, and she certainly meets strange characters on her journey through this wild-wonder-land. As in "Sleeping Beauty," kisses seem to be the way to "wake people up" from their spells.

Even with all these similarities to other stories, "Howl's Moving Castle" is very much its own fairytale. The only problem is that it goes on too long, becomes repetitive toward the end, and is sometimes hard to follow. But still the adventure is fun and truly worth the trip for the imaginative young and old.

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