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Post by RhodoraO on Feb 17, 2017 5:44:06 GMT
Discussion, reviews, news, pics, etc.
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Post by RhodoraO on Feb 22, 2017 19:25:53 GMT
I came across Howl's Moving Castle several years ago when I saw its English dubbing featurette on Youtube. It was a pleasant surprise to discover it's one of the IMDb Top 250 (still is @ #140). I immediately gave it a watch and totally loved it. I fell in love with nearly all the 'members of Howl's family' and I found Bale's voiceovers creating a really compelling, fascinating, and highly romantic character especially when combined with the feministic look of Howl. However, the plot elements were not exactly clear.
Last night I gave it a rewatch and was able to follow the dialogue really well which made the plot quite clear to me.
Here's my review plus analysis:
________________________________________SPOILERS AHEAD__________________________________________
Background: It is a world where magic, spells, and curses are a part of life. People go to magicians much like quacks seeking remedies in potions, powders and elixirs. Howl is a very powerful wizard with a notorious reputation. Young, heartbreakingly beautiful, and apparently heartless, he goes after women he likes and leaves them after robbing them of their hearts. He lives in a huge, steaming, mechanical contraption (the "castle") that moves around with legs shaped like a chicken's. Then there is impending war: A neighboring prince has mysteriously disappeared inciting two bordering nations to a stand-off.
The castle will form the background for half of the story but it's a character in and of itself. It's dynamic but laborious, grand but ugly, functional but noisy, magical but dingy.
Lead 1: Sophie, the young hatter's opinion about Howl changes when he saves her from two harassing soldiers on her way to her sister's place. The whole sequence where Howl takes Sophie up in the air with him and makes her walk through the air into her sister's balcony (thus escaping henchman of The Witch of the Waste) must be one of the most romantic sequences of all time in film. Sophie has certainly fallen in love with him but she won't be ready to admit that for some time to come.
Lead 2: As soon as Howl appears on the scene, we find him very intriguing with an irresistible charm produced by an endearing mix of masculine and feministic attributes. Bale's voiceovers are very smooth, tender, and full of mystique. Now that I think of it, the character recalls Bale's Laurie in terms of perfectly chiselled features, youth, delicacy of manner and soft-spokenness, except for the cool badass factor.
Act 1: The Witch of the Waste, whose own heart is set upon Howl, casts a spell on Sophie in her jealousy: a spell which she can't speak of to anyone and which turns her into a bent-back old wizen. Sophie escapes her house and sets upon the wasteland beyond her city, to avoid alarm in her family. On her way she rescues a bewitched Scarecrow (whom she calls Turnip-head) who seems to be taken with her and finally guides her to Howl's Moving Castle when she asks for shelter. Inside, the castle is dingy, dusty, and dirty. It's door is a portal that opens four-ways upon switching a marker by the door. NOTE: When I saw Dr. Strange this year, I immediately thought I had seen that portal thing before and now I know. This is worth investigating... which portal pre-dates which?
Character 3: The flame in the hearth, Calcifer, talks and runs the castle. He only follows Howl's commands and knows his history. Character 4: A little boy Markl considers Howl his master and conducts the day business of distributing magic remedies to customers at shops accessed by the portal.
Act 2: Old Sophie introduces himself to Howl as his new cleaning lady. She heckles Calcifer into cooking a proper breakfast and cleans the whole house. Meanwhile, war has started and Howl, in his magic black eagle form, takes part with the intention of assuaging the conflict. Sophie learns from Calcifer that Howl is also cursed. He lost his heart and the more powerful his magic the difficult it is for him to turn back into human form. Once, upon finding his bath shampoos mixed up on return, Howl throws a huge tantrum, mourning the loss of his beauty and almost calling up powers of darkness. NOTE: Wonder who that reminds us of? ;-) Sophie sees through Howl's antics, puts Calcifer in his place and bonds with Markl.
Madame Suliman, the King's aid, calls up both Howl and the Witch of the Waste to recruit their help in the war but Howl sends old Sophie feigning cowardice. Sophie watches the Witch forcefully deprived of her powers by Madame Suliman and turned into an ugly old grandma (her real age). She understands Madame's conceit and passionately denies Madame's accusations of Howl being a dangerous magician needing to be controlled. As soon as Madame Suliman sees through Sophie's curse that she's a young girl in love with Howl, Howl appears in person and instructs Sophie to escape with the help of one of his rings. The old Witch is tagged along in the hustle.
Act 3: The kind Sophie cares for both the old Witch and the increasingly tiring Howl who is finding it harder and harder to return to human form each day. Howl draws closer to Sophie and turns the castle into a beautiful European house that opens onto a field of beautiful pink flowers. He shows her a hut by a lake beyond the field which he used as a refuge in his childhood under an uncle's care. Madam Suliman manages to sneak in a "peeping bug" which Calcifer swallows and almost passes out. Howl saves him and vows to keep the castle safe for Sophie's sake. He is badly hurt in his next fight against the warring planes and disappears. Sophie, in order to force him out of his destructive cycle, forces everyone out of the castle including Calcifer. The castle collapses. Meanwhile, the Witch has correctly deduced that Calcifer swallowed Howl's heart. She grabs him and Sophie has to douse her to prevent a fire. As Calcifer is also doused, the whole castle falls apart and Sophie is thrown into a chasm.
Denouement: Sophie emerges into the darkness of the refuge house by the lake. She is back in time and watches a young Howl swallow a shooting star who reemerges as Calcifer with Howl's heart swallowed, both forever bound to each other. Sophie seeks out present day Howl and tells him she can help her. Howl returns her to the rest of the castle's separated group where she entreats Calcifer to return Howl's heart to him. Calcifer floats away free, Howl is restored while the Scarecrow's curse is also lifted revealing him to be the missing prince. Madam Suliman watching from a crystal ball realizes it's time to end the war. Calcifer decides to return to Howl's family; the castle is reformed, this time a colorful, better looking structure with Howl and Sophie together on it's balcony gardens.
Themes: There are two distinct themes in this film: identity and hea rt. Both the leads have a central conflict in that they tie too much significance to their outer appearance. We start the film with a young Sophie considering herself plain and in no risk of being seduced by a womanizer like Howl. Later, during Howl's rants on how the threat to his beauty is worth not living anymore, she loses it yelling "I've never been beautiful my whole life" and storms out of the house before returning to push Howl to his bath. Both protagonists are actually young (Howl in a permanent adolescence due to the loss of his heart) but dealing with maturity thrust upon them by external forces. We see Howl growing old in his black beastly eagle form. The major problem for both leads is how to strike a balance between their conflicting sides. Their attempts to switch from the scary old side to their natural young one is visualized really well, though it may be confusing for some in case of Sophie's.
Here we connect to the other theme: heart, the more literal of the themes. It might be the most mentioned word (girls in the hat shop discuss hearts, the Witch mentions hearts all the time). It is also an actual plot device as described above. Heart is also intimately connected to the resolution of the central conflict in both the leads.
For Sophie, she feels young whenever she owns up to her feelings for Howl, expressing them or simply feeling at one with him (such as in the pink field). We see youth returning to her, apparently the force of the curse weakening and her real physical self showing through. She looks middle-aged when she's happily engaged with her housemaking tasks at the castle, strolling about confidently like a fine dame.
For Howl, the literal loss of his heart has made his personality a haven of conflicting attitudes with a common arrogance: womanizing, self-love, and omnipotence (shown by his foolhardy attempts to dissipate the war by himself). That he's actually depressed is very obvious: the appearance of his castle, the general distance he seems to keep with his family, his ignorance of his well-being, are cases in point. Thus Sophie provides him with the perfect second half, she cleans up the place, she brings everybody closer, she takes care of him at multiple occasions.
The more they are able to act in close concert with their feelings for each other the more they are of help to each other by bringing each closer to the breaking of other's curse. Both are thus a direct means by which they ultimately break free of the chains. The chains, not just of the curses, but of their own either misguided or underdeveloped senses of worth. At the end both have struck that balance: Sophie retains grey hair signifying the maturity she has earned by now. Howl no longer looks like an adolescent but a man with a past who has won his girl.
_________________________________________END OF SPOILERS___________________________________________________
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Post by RhodoraO on Feb 23, 2017 6:08:30 GMT
From SplicedWire.com 2005 review: Blessedly, Miyazaki doesn't bother to sort out the story using mere logic. He instead goes with his instincts, like a child inventing a playtime universe and making up the rules in the moment. The great filmmaker uses primal forces to tell his story, like wind and cold, feeling your age, or feeling hungry. It's a purely visceral ride.I partly agree with that observation. In my analysis, I find enough logic but of course, it is art, it doesn't have to be mathematically precise. Another interesting observation from the same review: The filmmaker's most unique attribute, his uncanny sense of space, time and weight, is still here. When Old Sophie and the witch climb the endless stairs to a royal palace, you feel every straining step.
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Post by RhodoraO on Feb 23, 2017 6:28:09 GMT
Howl's Moving Castle art poster by Olly Moss, debuted at San Diego Comic Con 2013:
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 2, 2017 23:35:54 GMT
Excerpt from an analysis of 'home' metaphor in Miyazaki's films on FilmSchoolRejects: Miyazaki turns the idea of a home into a much more complex matter by not just moving between the external and internal worlds of the characters, but tying them with more intricate ideas that speak to both young children and adults. In Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), for example, the home becomes a complex idea that is brought into question through representations of the home in the physical realm. Calcifer represents the literal heart of the home, a facet of Howl’s inner world brought into reality. Sophie’s curse that turns her into an old woman leaves her inner life unable to correspond with her original home. Instead, she has to find a new one, and as she does the home inside of her changes.
Most important is the castle itself, as it represents what the homes Miyazaki creates become to the viewer. Howl’s castle is ever-moving, it’s doors open up to new places and paths, and the people that inhabit it change from grumpy fireplaces to caring protectors, or from wicked witches to flawed human beings. These altering homes and people show that Miyazaki’s work tells its audience it’s okay for homes to physically shift. Moreover, this constant movement is emphasised through the director’s scenes of flight, that mirror the dreamscapes, and therefore true homes, of his films.
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 9, 2017 5:08:13 GMT
From A. O. Scott's detailed review in The New York Times: Overall feel of the film: There is certainly plenty of adventure in store. Mr. Miyazaki's capacity for narrative invention has yet to find its limit, and this movie is filled with strange and marvelous creatures and incidents, some inspired by the book, others entirely of his own devising. His images have a richness and delicacy that is almost too much to take in at one viewing, as the mood shifts from pastoral quiet to operatic spectacle. Rolling hills and tidy city streets give way to whirling celestial battlefields, and moments of exquisite tenderness alternate with scenes of violence and destruction. Voice Talent: The dubbed version of "Howl's Moving Castle" -- a subtitled version will also be released in a few American theaters -- features an impressive array of old and new Hollywood talent. (The voice actors were directed by Pete Docter and Rick Dempsey of Pixar.) Emily Mortimer, lovely even when unseen, is the younger Sophie, and Christian Bale plays Howl, who has a curious kinship with Batman, the actor's next big role. But since this movie is, partly a tribute to the pleasures and powers of aging, it is fitting that old-timers are given pride of place. The Witch of the Waste utters her spells and curses in the grand, gravelly tones of Lauren Bacall, while the older Sophie, the witch's rival and foil, rasps in the voice of another great screen diva, Jean Simmons. The central love story: [Sophie's] feelings for Howl combine maternal solicitude, sisterly affection and adolescent infatuation, all of them making "Howl's Moving Castle," among other things, a curious and touching love story. The castle: It is surely one of the most extraordinary contraptions to appear on screen recently, more ingenious in its way than the intergalactic armada in "Revenge of the Sith." Ambling through fields and mountains on chicken legs, its architectural details suggesting human faces, the castle is a perfect emblem for Mr. Miyazaki's filmmaking methods. It is clearly handmade, oddly proportioned, funny, sometimes creepy and unaccountably sublime.
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 10, 2017 4:56:58 GMT
Ken Tucker in this NYMag review has an eye for the quiet and pleasant ambience of the movie: In the best moments of Howl's Moving Castle and in his extraordinary body of work, Miyazaki teaches his viewers more valuable lessons: that cultivating a kind of meditative dreaminess is important, that logic is fallible and often benefits from surrendering to instinct, that hushed visual beauty is a treasure unto itself.
Full review at: nymag.com/nymetro/movies/reviews/11994/
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Post by RhodoraO on Mar 14, 2017 5:10:20 GMT
In this review from The Telegraph, Sukhdev Sandhu finds Howl " The most enchanting film of the year" except for Bale's and Crystal's voices which he finds dissonant. It's a nice review overall.
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Post by RhodoraO on Dec 27, 2020 5:15:35 GMT
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Post by RhodoraO on Feb 6, 2021 7:53:16 GMT
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