seraphcelene (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seraphcelene) wrote2008-04-09 11:03 pm
seraphcelene) wrote2008-04-09 11:03 pm
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Movie: Howl's Moving Castle (2005)
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.
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.
no subject
He's amazingly awesome. LOVE!