Post on 02-Jan-2017
Howl’s Moving Castle
Hauru no Ugoku Shiro, 2004, Japan Film Overview
Howl’s Moving Castle is one of Miyazaki’s more fantastical and magical movies to date. Containing all the things that make a Hayao Miyazaki movie amazing, while inserting one of the more mature love stories the famed director has dealt with so far. Set in a time when war is escalating in a land resembling early twentieth century Europe, we meet a young woman named Sophie. Thinking herself plain and condemned to live an uninteresting and unfulfilling life as a hatter, a chance encounter with the great wizard Howl changes the course of her life. Cursed by the Witch of the Waste for catching the fancy of Howl, Sophie is turned into a ninety year old woman. Instead of lamenting her fate, she uses it as a chance for liberation from her current predicament, freed of the anxieties of having to be beautiful and industrious. Seeking out Howl, she finds his famed moving castle, powered by a noisy daemon of fire, Calcifer.
Meeting Howl, Calcifer, and Howl’s apprentice, Markl, Sophie soon finds a new surrogate family, falls in love with Howl, and not only helps bring peace to Howl, and inadvertently to the warring nations. The tale is based off of a novel by the same name authored by Diana Wynne Jones, with changes made to suit the storytelling sensibilities of Miyazaki. The story is one of self-‐empowerment in regards to the character of Sophie, with her finding the inner strength she did not believe she was capable of having at the beginning of the film. For the wizard Howl, Miyazaki focuses on a young man’s selfish focus on unlimited power and has Howl mature as he is exposed to the selfless love of Sophie, process that allows him to figuratively and literally regain his heart. Magic is also another driving force of this movie, being the main motivation and tool of many characters, but with Sophie, the one who thinks herself most ordinary, having the greatest magic of all that is able to save everyone she encounters in one way or another. Howl’s Moving Castle is a fun, family friendly tale with heartwarming characters and an even more heartwarming finale. Hayao Miyazaki is a prominent Japanese filmmaker of many popular animated feature films. He is also a co-‐founder of Studio Ghibli, an animation studio and production company. In 2006, Time Magazine voted Miyazaki one of the most influential Asians of the past 60 years. In 2005, he was named one of the Time 100 Most Influential People. Movie Notes
• Onmyōdō – A syncretic tupe of magic that came over form China to Japan, only to incorporate more native elements of Japanese sensibilities and spirituality. Eastern magic, usually referred to in Japan by the word onmyōdō, has its origins in old folk practices found in most nature-‐oriented religions that were found throughout Asia at the time. With the influence of Taoism, another layer was added on top of it to be able to control spirits, turn into demons, escape the body, control the elements, and gain immortality. While embodying many similar aspects of Western magic, Eastern magic has less to do with verbal incantations and more with the individual ability and prowress of the magic practitioner and potions. Invoking gods, feng shui, the principles of yin and yang, and using the traditional five elements (with the five elements of Japan usually being fire, wind, water, earth, and void), onmyōdō still persists in Japanese popular culture and in the shady alleys of Tokyo where tourists usually don’t find themselves.
• Setting The setting for the film is not unlike the setting for other Miyazaki films such as Porco Rosso and Kiki’s Delivery Service. With the former movie occurring in Mediterranean Europe after World War I and the latter set in an alternate Europe where World War II never took place. Howl’s Moving Castle seems to take place in a Europe as World War I escalates, albeit in a fictional Europe, with fictional nations and characters. This European world is more fantastical and colorful, taking most of its inspiration from late 19th-‐century French and Victorian culture, while also simultaneously including 20th-‐century forms of transportation. The main track of the film itself, “The Merry-‐Go-‐Round of Life,” calls to mind Italian musical influences; as if it was music you would hear one play in Venice. The air ships used in the war scenes recount zeppelins, while Howl’s Moving Castle itself seems to have stepped out of a Dickensian novel. The
setting Miyazaki has set up for this film lends to the fantastical and magical premise, while also celebrating the more wondrous aspects of his story.
• Anti-‐War Message Miyazaki has always been an outspoken critic of certain ideologies and practices that he finds harmful to the earth and humankind, with one of his stances being an anti-‐war stance. He put a critical eye of Fascist Italy in his Porco Rosso film. He lambasted the creation and use of weapons of mass destruction in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Laputa: Castle in the Sky. In Howl’s Moving Castle, the anti-‐war message is hard to ignore due to it being a major plot point of the whole film. Miyazaki even gives the reason for the war an absurd reason: A prince is missing and no one knows where he is, so naturally, all-‐out war has broken out. We are introduced to one king’s court and the mage that presides there, with her maliciousness and scheming going to father lengths than the first supposed villain of the film, the Witch of the Waste. The destruction itself is shown in its full scope, with the war scenes being some of Miyazaki’s most engrossing and accomplished animation sequences produced during his career. At the crux of the whole story though is the relationship between Howl and Sophie, with these two protagonists learning to love each other during a volatile time in the history of their world. A great toll is taken on their relationship due to the sacrifices Howl makes in order to stop the war. While this film is one of enchantment and values, the anti-‐war message is heard loud and clear and affects every part of the movie just as much as the magic and personality of the characters.