BDirected by Hayao Miyazaki Starring Emily Mortimer, Jean Simmons, and Christian Bale Review by Jon Kissel |  |
Genius animator Hayao Miyazaki stretches his pacifist muscles in Howl's Moving Castle, a film produced and released during the run-up to and execution of the Second Gulf War. Outspoken in his opposition to military adventurism, Miyazaki puts anti-war critique side by side with magical scarecrows and obese witches. His best films, My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away, get their considerable power from small-scale emotions and a healthy helping of awe. Howl's Moving Castle retains these attributes but slightly muddles them with allegory and some jumbled storytelling.
Shifting his usual setting from Japan to industrial Alpine Europe, Miyazaki introduces the viewer to the titular contraption in indelible shots of a creaky, steampunk creation stalking its way through fog. He then shifts to a bustling city, settling on young hatmaker Sophie (Emily Mortimer, in the English dub). Alienated in the metropolis and mired in the shadow of her beautiful sister Lettie, Sophie quietly moves through her life until running into charismatic sorcerer Howl (Christian Bale). With Sophie in tow, Howl effortlessly escapes from the evil sprites tailing him, but the sprites' mistress, the Witch of the Waste (Lauren Bacall) goes after Sophie instead, turning her into an old woman. With no way to break the curse, Sophie (now voiced by Jean Simmons) sets out into the mountains to find Howl and demand that he help her. She finds his castle with the aid of a sentient, mute scarecrow, and is grudgingly welcomed by Howl's apprentice Markl (Josh Hutcherson) and the indentured servant/fire demon Calcifer (Billy Crystal) who powers the castle.
Once inside, Sophie takes in the castle's wonders, guiding the viewer through a magical world far away from the one she had previously known. There's a teleporter knob by the door, such that turning it will lead the exiter out of a shop in Sophie's city, a rival city, or wherever the castle is sitting. Markl has an appearance-altering mask that never ceases to be funny when he puts it on. The castle itself is a design miracle, anthropomorphized with a metal face and lolling tongue, bird legs that look far too weak to carry it, and dozens of chimneys and vents that blast smoke into the air. Howl is intermittently there, but when he is, his presence is like that of a surly teen. The interior is a cluttered mess, and when Howl's irritated, he goes into a comatose state and oozes goop everywhere. Miyazaki keeps throwing new amazements onto the screen, blending the practical and the fantastical with every frame.
Amidst the wonder that always exists in Miyazaki films, Howl's Moving Castle is grounded by its stalwart lineup of fantasy characters. Sophie leads the way, accompanied by JRPG staples like a little kid, a magical entity, and a cute animal in the form of an elderly dog that eventually joins the group. Much of the plot revolves around Calcifer, depicted as googly eyes and a mouth on a gout of flame, and for a character voiced by the oft-annoying Crystal, he provides a solid foundation and unobtrusive comic relief. Sophie is one of Miyazaki's better protagonists, functioning as more than the straight woman that things are happening to or around. Her transformation, from a young woman that feels invisible to an old woman who may as well be where society is concerned, is poetic enough to generate real pathos. Miyazaki repeatedly finds her staring out at breathtaking vistas from the castle's balcony, making her more contemplative than someone like Spirited Away's Chihiro but that doesn't make her passive. She has little patience for Howl's childish insecurities, forcing him into action and moving the film ever forward.
The anti-war aspect is where Howl's Moving Castle runs into trouble. The grander circumstances surrounding Sophie and Howl and the Witch of the Wastes find them as mere cogs in national politics, where their machinations are small potatoes against wars of indeterminate and possibly irrelevant causes. Being a powerful sorcerer, Howl is able to make a small impact on his own by sabotaging the forces of both armies, but each time he returns to his home, he's a little more animalistic and it takes a little longer to bring him back to normal. The war fills in the picture around the crew in the castle, but it doesn't serve much of a function beyond fleshing out Miyazaki's worldview. There's enough going on with the other characters to sustain the film on its own, and once these various interpersonal conflicts get resolved, the film betrays its feelings about the military backdrop by racing to the credits, pasting hasty resolutions in a move otherwise foreign to Studio Ghibli works.
With its giant metallic mouth, Howl's Moving Castle bites off more than it can chew. Miyazaki is on firmest ground with a story of arrested development and hastened infirmity. He would revisit his pacifist instincts with a more subtle attempt to interrogate man's warlike impulses in The Wind Rises. Here, it's a worthy cause executed inorganically. B
Once inside, Sophie takes in the castle's wonders, guiding the viewer through a magical world far away from the one she had previously known. There's a teleporter knob by the door, such that turning it will lead the exiter out of a shop in Sophie's city, a rival city, or wherever the castle is sitting. Markl has an appearance-altering mask that never ceases to be funny when he puts it on. The castle itself is a design miracle, anthropomorphized with a metal face and lolling tongue, bird legs that look far too weak to carry it, and dozens of chimneys and vents that blast smoke into the air. Howl is intermittently there, but when he is, his presence is like that of a surly teen. The interior is a cluttered mess, and when Howl's irritated, he goes into a comatose state and oozes goop everywhere. Miyazaki keeps throwing new amazements onto the screen, blending the practical and the fantastical with every frame.
Amidst the wonder that always exists in Miyazaki films, Howl's Moving Castle is grounded by its stalwart lineup of fantasy characters. Sophie leads the way, accompanied by JRPG staples like a little kid, a magical entity, and a cute animal in the form of an elderly dog that eventually joins the group. Much of the plot revolves around Calcifer, depicted as googly eyes and a mouth on a gout of flame, and for a character voiced by the oft-annoying Crystal, he provides a solid foundation and unobtrusive comic relief. Sophie is one of Miyazaki's better protagonists, functioning as more than the straight woman that things are happening to or around. Her transformation, from a young woman that feels invisible to an old woman who may as well be where society is concerned, is poetic enough to generate real pathos. Miyazaki repeatedly finds her staring out at breathtaking vistas from the castle's balcony, making her more contemplative than someone like Spirited Away's Chihiro but that doesn't make her passive. She has little patience for Howl's childish insecurities, forcing him into action and moving the film ever forward.
The anti-war aspect is where Howl's Moving Castle runs into trouble. The grander circumstances surrounding Sophie and Howl and the Witch of the Wastes find them as mere cogs in national politics, where their machinations are small potatoes against wars of indeterminate and possibly irrelevant causes. Being a powerful sorcerer, Howl is able to make a small impact on his own by sabotaging the forces of both armies, but each time he returns to his home, he's a little more animalistic and it takes a little longer to bring him back to normal. The war fills in the picture around the crew in the castle, but it doesn't serve much of a function beyond fleshing out Miyazaki's worldview. There's enough going on with the other characters to sustain the film on its own, and once these various interpersonal conflicts get resolved, the film betrays its feelings about the military backdrop by racing to the credits, pasting hasty resolutions in a move otherwise foreign to Studio Ghibli works.
With its giant metallic mouth, Howl's Moving Castle bites off more than it can chew. Miyazaki is on firmest ground with a story of arrested development and hastened infirmity. He would revisit his pacifist instincts with a more subtle attempt to interrogate man's warlike impulses in The Wind Rises. Here, it's a worthy cause executed inorganically. B
RSS Feed