Movie: Howl's Moving Castle (2005)

[seraphcelene]

One of the things that I love about Hayao Miyazaki, as much as I hate to admit to it, is that each of his movies is in some way a love story. Some more than others, some more obviously than others. Princess Mononoke suggested a love for the Earth and nature in addition to romantic love between characters. In Spirited Away there was filial love, love for friends and constructed families, in addition to romantic love (which I will insist existed between Sen and Haku with my last breath -- Zara Helma's Bridge Across the Maybe Sea doesn't help me forget about them as a pairing). Kikki's Delivery Service, too, is a story about connections and belonging and varieties of love.



Howl's Moving Castle is very explicitly a love story, but also reflects Miyazaki's interest in constructed families; I fell in love with it. I fell in love with the tortured, spoiled, cursed and heartless Howl (as sinister as he is heroic), and Sophie who loves him and regains her youth and beauty in those moments when she allows her passion for Howl to show. It hit my kinks -- unrequited and cursed true love, pretty and surprisingly deep heroes, and hopeless girls with spunk.

In this film, I love how Howl and Sophie dance around each other, never quite getting to the heart of it all. I love that Howl gives her a field full of flowers and that she calls him on being self-indulgent, vain and over dramatic. That she saves him in the end, figuring out the terms of his curse and restoring his heart. It fulfilled for me that yen for closure that I didn't get in Spirited Away. I love that in saving him, she gains confidence and ultimately saves herself.

Of course, there are Miyazaki's commentary on the Earth and nature and overwhelming industry, here meaningless warfare is also a huge threat to both Howl and the world. The way that Howl and the other warlocks lose themselves in the battle, becoming monsters who destroy and losing their human identity could be an allegory for the way that war changes us all, often for the worse. What do we, as human beings, give up in order to commit such atrocities against one another? How much can the soul withstand before it is no longer recognizable as human?

Howl's Moving Castle is as pretty as Miyazaki's other films and there are a myriad of fantastic characters who come and go. Like I said, Miyazaki has a thing for constructed families, the ones you choose or who choose you are likely to be the most important people to you.

Comments

[darlas-mom.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you and I'm almost in tears remembering how gorgeous "Howl's Moving Castle" was. I love Hayao Miyazaki's work, and between us, my brother Anthony and I own pretty much the entire collection. I find the movies awesomely uplifting.

::sniffles:: Damn. Now I need a box of Kleenex and a re-watching of "Howl."

[seraphcelene]

*I* need to own the whole collection. I've loved every film that I've ever seen. There are few left, but last year, sci-fi channel or cartoon network spent a week or so showing all of his major films. I don't think Howl's Moving Castle or Castle in the Sky had been released yet.

He's amazingly awesome. LOVE!

[my_daroga]

I like your review, but I just couldn't get past the appropriation of the names and trappings of the Diana Wynne Jones book (one of my absolute favorite authors) with a completely different story and message. I'd probably have liked this movie quite a lot if I hadn't been sold on something different. Which puts me in the difficult position of not hating Miyazaki for what he did, but not being able to enjoy the film, either.

[seraphcelene]

Yeah, I saw the movie first and then thought about reading the book, but the synopsis that I read was different enough that I'm not interested in reading it right now with the movie so fresh in my mind. Maybe later when I don't have Miyazaki's Howl at the front of my brain.

Diana Wynne Jones did meet with Miyazaki and give her blessing and discuss what he wanted to do with the film and she's quoted as saying:

"It's fantastic. No, I have no input - I write books, not films. Yes it will be =different= from the book - in fact it's likely to be very different, but that's as it should be. It will still be a fantastic film."

So, I think that reading the book later will be awesome and very seperate from the film, but I've learned to give these thigns a little space. I had to watch the XMen movies twice because they strayed so far afield from the source material that I had to take time to divorce the two in my mind. I basically had to relax about the differences and allow myself to appreciate the movies and the comics and seperate things.

[my_daroga]

I think her blessing is great, and fine, and I know it should mitigate my problems. But it's not that simple, and perhaps had I been better prepared for the changes (I expected the sort you expect from an adaptation, but not the degree) it would have helped. That's why I can't say anything bad about the movie but still can't love it.

Part of it is I feel so strongly about her work because it's so overshadowed yet brilliant. "Finally, someone's paying attention! Oh. It's just the title." It probably led to more people reading her work, but I'm coming from the p.o.v. of someone who'd been waiting for something like this for years and didn't really get it.

I'll try again... much later.

I'd recommend trying some of her other books, though, if you like "ya fantasy" that's actually pretty adult and reality-based. I've gotten tkp to read several. Dogsbody is good if you like dogs; Fire and Hemlock is a retelling of Tam Lin; Time of the Ghost is good, too. Well, they're all pretty good.

[lettered.livejournal.com]

Second my_daroga on DWJ. If you haven't read her, that is. She's awesome--I think you would really like Fire and Hemlock.

I've been meaning to read Howl's... but maybe I should see the movie first so I don't contract K's problem of wanting it to be the book!

[seraphcelene]

I've definitely added her to my list of authors to pursue.

It may be better to see the movie first so that you don't fall
into the trap of disappointing yourself because from what I've read and what my_daroga has said, the source and the film really aren't the same movie. I had that same reaction watching the movie adaptaion of Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned which took a complex, layered novel and reduced it into an abominable Mtv music video. I very seldom have the urge to walk out on a film after I've paid $10 to see it, but that one had me on the brink!!

So, if you really want to see the film, it might be better to go there first.