- As anticipated, Howl's Moving Castle is beautiful, creative, and completely unlike anything I've ever seen, with the exception of Hayao Miyazaki's other films. That's not to say that all his work is similar -- in fact, his filmography features a great deal of visual and thematic variation -- but rather that his films are categorically so far removed from everything else, especially the rest of the animation world, that they simply deserve a special class of their own. There aren't many directors who could earn such a description, and even fewer for whom I would mean it as a compliment, but Miyazaki is one such talent.
- Now the shocker: I didn't enjoy Howl's Moving Castle as much of most of his other work. It's amazing that I find myself saying that after such an effusive opening paragraph, but it's absolutely true. I thought the story, in which an unconfident girl named Sophie (Emily Mortimer) encounters a powerful wizard named Howl (Christian Bale) and is transformed into an old woman (Jean Simmons) by the frightfully obese Witch of the Waste (Lauren Bacall), was more than a little confusing, both literally and thematically. Perhaps it is an index of Miyazaki's greatness that I have those complaints, but that they didn't prevent me from appreciating the film.
- On to what I did appreciate, namely the film's immensely striking, strange, and wonderful visual details. There's an admirably persistent, grinning Scarecrow nicknamed "Turniphead" and a wheezy little dog whose possible allegiance to a government witch (Blythe Danner) calls his cute little loyalty into question. There's a young boy (Josh Hutcherson) whose only magic trick is that he can quickly disguise himself as a bearded man. Shooting stars skate over the water, shadow villains wear fashionable hats, old women race up the stairs at a glacial pace, and a door in Howl's castle opens to different places at different times. And then there's Howl's castle itself, which is a teetering, creaking, walking avalanche of crooked architecture powered by the smart-alecky fire demon Calcifer (Billy Crystal) and cluttered with cobwebs, chipped plates, and detritus of every sort. I'm not sure I could tell you why Sophie's age varied so fluidly, nor why Howl's heart got torn out when he ingested a meteor, but the movie is visually fascinating enough that I didn't really care. Sometimes it is enough simply to watch and enjoy.
