Howl’s Moving Castle—written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki—has the difficult and enviable position of following a legendary film by a legendary filmmaker, with the full weight and resources of an equally legendary studio behind it. Fortunately, it is a worthy followup to the Academy Award-winning (and virtually perfect) Spirited Away, with just a few very minor hiccups that keep it just a few feet short of the same dizzying heights of its predecessor.
The film wastes no time grabbing the viewer’s interest. Opening with slow mysterious music from Joe Hisaishi, Miyazaki’s longtime film composer, on a scene of dark fog that slowly gives way to the heavy, steam driven steps of the titular castle on the prowl serves to draw the viewer in. And the castle’s appearance is one of wild construction: a multitude of weird, bizarre, and cascading angles—making it clear that it could not possibly have been constructed through any sort of conventional means—and all the while simultaneously saying both “explore me” and “stay away.”
Both the music and the scene quickly give way to a more uplifting experience as we are introduced to our unlikely heroine, Sophie (Chieko Baisho/Emily Mortimer/Jean Simmons), a simple, driven milliner who is entirely too hard on herself. She considers herself plain and unattractive, especially when in comparison to her younger sisters. On her way to visit one of those younger sisters, Lettie (Yayoi Kazuki/Jena Malone), she unexpectedly encounters the powerful and charming wizard Howl (Takuya Kimura/Christian Bale). Shortly thereafter, Sophie has a fateful encounter with the dreaded and feared Witch of the Waste (Akihiro Miwa/Lauren Bacall), who puts a curse on her that causes her to look quite old. Leaving everything and everyone behind, Sophie ends up taking residence at Howl’s castle as the cleaning lady, and she meets Howl’s young apprentice Markle (Ryūnosuke Kamiki/Josh Hutcherson) and Calcifer (Tatsuya Gashūin/Billy Crystal), the source of the castle’s strange and mysterious abilities. The three of them together—along with Howl—begin to really make a peculiar hodgepodge of a family.
The film’s overt themes are simple, effective, and powerful drivers for the action. Lurking in the background of the opening act and coming into the forefront in subsequent acts of the film is a war between two fictional kingdoms. Howl spends much of his time away from the castle playing the two sides off of each other, because he doesn’t want to get involved with either side. He just wants to be left alone. We spend much of the film’s 119-minute runtime wondering what sparked the conflict, even as it escalates to the two sides taking drastic actions to both recruit Howl to their respective sides and to dominate the conflict over the other, and Howl has to take increasingly desperate steps to keep those he cares for safe.
Meanwhile, as Sophie settles into working for Howl, first by cleaning the castle and then by taking care of the mighty sorcerer himself, she continues to struggle with the curse laid upon her by the Witch of the Waste, even as she claims to embrace it. Sophie is clever and uses her elderly appearance to her advantage, but ultimately struggles with what she has always struggled with, even as a young woman. This struggle is beautifully and elegantly portrayed by Miyazaki and the animation team at Studio Ghibli. And, even though the film is twenty years old at this point, I don’t want to spoil it because it is so central to the film. All I will say is that it is handled with a delicate and deft touch that makes the viewer yearn to embrace Sophie.
As hinted at earlier in this review, Hisaishi’s score is another high watermark for the great composer. Relying heavily on the Wagner-school of thematic composition, Hisaishi creates a few themes and constantly reuses, recycles, and reinvents those same themes in new and interesting ways to keep things fresh, none more so than the now-iconic “Merry Go-Round of Life” theme. He puts that particular theme through its paces regularly throughout the film, and to largely great effect. It rarely feels old and overused, in spite of how often it is used, because he constantly reinvents it with new instrumentation and new styles. It flows freely in the strings at one point, and then becomes a bold fanfare figure in the brass at a later point—and a variety of additional styles in between.
There are a few minor blemishes on this film. In a few small areas, the pacing is just a tad sluggish. And one scene in particular seems to struggle too much with whether it’s trying to be humorous or dramatic, and so it doesn’t seem to succeed at either especially well. It’s a fairly lengthy sequence to boot, magnifying the confusion. Finally, the film is largely hand drawn, but CGI is incorporated into the film, largely into the background of certain scenes, possibly in order to expedite the animation process of certain effects like wafting smoke. If the viewer focuses on these CGI-driven elements, it sticks out pretty negatively. The CGI is done relatively poorly and does not blend especially well with the hand drawn elements. Fortunately, these CGI elements are mostly relegated to a background role and requires the viewer to divert attention and focus from where the studio intends the viewer’s focus to be in order to pick up on how bad the CGI actually is; so, it tends not to be terribly egregious in the overall scheme of things. Still, it isn’t great that an animation studio of this pedigree chose not to ensure that the CGI elements blended more seamlessly with the hand drawn elements.
Howl’s Moving Castle is a worthy followup to the incredibly high bar set by Spirited Away. Full of vigor, great overt themes, and terrific characters, the film sets the viewer on a journey of self-acceptance and compassion in the face of war. A few minor issues keep the film from reaching the perfection achieved by the filmmaker’s previous 2001 adventure, but it still reaches dizzying heights nonetheless. Howl’s Moving Castle definitely does not suck.
Written & Directed by Hayao Miyazaki.
Starring: Chieko Baisho/Emily Mortimer/Jean Simmons, Takuya Kimura/Christian Bale, Ryūnosuke Kamiki/Josh Hutcherson, Tatsuya Gashūin/Billy Crystal, Akihiro Miwa/Lauren Bacall, etc.
9/10 = DROP EVERYTHING AND WATCH IT NOW (IT DEFINITELY DOES NOT SUCK)
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