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Not so Howl's Moving Castle. The very first scene gives a look at the chicken-legged mechanical mountain of the title, and we've barely met the hero and heroine before they're being menaced by creepy, tar-like blob men. The town they run through looks like nineteenth-century Switzerland, but it has an express train running through the center, flying motorcycles, storefront wizards, and titanic floating battleships. There's a friendly fire demon who initially looks like floating eyes until you realize they're part of the fire, and flying monsters that we're told are wizards who have forgotten how to turn themselves human again. There's hellish visions of war and beautifully pastoral images.

The plot sometimes seems to wander a little. A young hatmaker named Sophie meets the mysterious wizard Howl in a back alley, but the consequence is that Howl's enemy, the Wicked Witch of the Waste, casts a spell on her, making her an old woman and unable to tell anyone what happened. Hoping to find a solution, she makes her way to the wastelands, where witches and wizards roam unpoliced, hoping to find someone who can restore her. Instead, she finds a spooky-looking scarecrow, who in turn leads her to Howl's rather mobile home. There, she meets Howl's apprentice Markl, and his captured fire demon Calcifer, but Howl himself doesn't appear to recognize her, and is fearful about his teacher, Madame Sariman, drawing him in to fight in the kingdom's latest war. She installs herself as the cleaning lady and waits.

Part of what makes Howl so absorbing is that it doesn't try to tell everyone's stories in their entirety. We meet Sophie's mother and younger sister, both of whom are rather popular with men, and we hear reference to her late father. We learn enough to know that there is some history between them, and maybe complicated feelings, but don't have all the details spelled out. We learn that there is a war going on, but now who it's with, or what it's about. It's not just background, as it does impact the plot and characters, but it also never takes control narratively (though it does impact the visuals in the latter half of the movie). The history that Howl, Sariman, and the Witch of the Waste share is similarly intertwined, and the connections spoken aloud for the audience's benefit are clearly not the whole story. We never learn why Markl is in Howl's care (I say he's the apprentice, but he's never named as such). This is not a weakness, though - it puts us in Sophie's position. Howl's world is bigger and stranger than hers, and she's not going to be able to learn all about it.

Though the film is adapted from a Western source, the main characters as presented by Miyazaki seem to come directly from shojo manga. Sophie is not quite shy, but she recognizes that she appears plain relative to her mother and her sister and is reconciled to being in their shadow. Perhaps she takes after her father, who opened the hat shop; she takes pride in her careful work in putting her hats together. Howl sweeps her off her feet, literally, but is not the roguish, rugged man he might be in a Western movie. He's more beautiful than handsome, drawn almost as androgynous, easily frightened despite all his power and apt to burst into tears when his hair gets messed up. He grows feathers rather than a beard. Clacifer shares Howl's fearfulness, making it shocking when he flares up to an inferno while casting a particularly powerful spell. I saw a subtitled print, and kind of have a hard time believing that Billy Crystal dubs this voice in the American version; Tatsuya Gashuin makes him a cowardly, conniving demon, equal parts child and old man, unwilling to admit he's attached to Howl and his coterie. I'm similarly curious about Christian Bale playing Howl; after Batman Begins, he seems too powerful for the part.

It might be worth seeing again in English, if only to give me an excuse to see it again and maybe sort a few of the subtleties out. One way Miyazaki makes intriguing use of his medium is to allow Sophie's apparent age to change with perspective. At one point in the middle of the film, she seems to be young again, and it's not clear that she's dreaming until a bit later. There are shots that imply Howl can see through her curse, but he never comments on it, and during the last act, there may be meaning to how she appears that I didn't catch at the time. Miyazaki is sometimes subtle about how he slips us important bits of information, and with a story as rich as Howl's, one viewing may not be enough to get all of it. You can follow it, but further rumination makes it clear that you didn't quite catch everything.

Howl's Moving Castle is a dense, intelligent work that demands your attention. Not to denigrate other fine works in the medium, but as much as I loved movies like The Incredibles, Beauty and the Beast, Antz, et al, I felt like I knew them after seeing them once. I don't know this one so much; I know that I was impressed and entertained, but I also know that seeing it again will tell me more, and I'm curious about that.

Of course, for those that want entertainment over analysis, it's a funny, thrilling, whimsical, melancholy, exhilarating two hours. It's just romantic and scary enough for kids to love it, and smart enough for adults to perhaps love it even more.

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originally posted: 06/27/05 10:43:53
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