It’s unclear, exactly, what these beings are or where they come from. Similar beings are present when Howl trades his heart for magical powers. For example, one of the spells cast by Suliman (to deprive the Witch of the Waste of her powers) includes a chain of shadowy, spirit-like beings locking hands around the witch. On the other hand, several moments in the film hint at a bigger spiritual world. Howl, for example, shape-shifts back and forth between his human and birdlike forms he also uses a spell to disable the controls of a large warplane and makes his friends invisible for a short time the Witch of the Waste curses Sophie, and she’s instantly 70 years older. Magic is simply a normal part of the fantasy world that director Hayao Miyazaki brings to life. On one hand, much of the magic seems mechanical in the sense that it’s not clearly drawing from some spiritual or other-worldly power source. The spiritual worldview presented by Howl’s Moving Castle is a muddy one. Only by regaining his lost heart, which he traded for magical powers when he was a young boy, can Howl find release from his prison.Īnd only as Howl and Sophie aid one another-and fall in love in the process-is there any hope for release from their curses. Each time he changes shape, however, it becomes harder for him to return to human form. Instead, believing all war is wrong, the wizard morphs into a giant bird and attacks combatants on both sides. Howl himself is sometimes brazen, sometimes cowardly and always tormented-and he refuses to fight for the king when war erupts (a conflict that’s apparently been engineered by the king’s chief sorceress, Madame Suliman). The magical castle meanders noisily through the countryside like a misshapen mechanical animal and serves as a portal to four different parts of the world as well. Howl shares his castle with a boy-wizard in training named Markl and a fire demon known as Calcifer whose powers not only heat the castle but energize its movements as well. She doesn’t get far before she meets an animated scarecrow she names Turnip, who in turn leads her to the moving castle of Howl-the wizard who saved her in the city. That chance encounter stirs the jealousy of the Witch of the Waste, whose malevolent magic instantly turns Sophie into a 90-year-old woman.ĭejected, Sophie leaves family and friends behind as she trudges into the mountainous wasteland searching for a way to reverse the curse. One day, Sophie’s mundane world is forever altered when a young, mysterious wizard rescues her from the unwanted advances of two soldiers. But she lives in a city where rumors of the bigger world include whispers of war between two kingdoms and stories of renegade witches and wizards-including one whose home is a moving castle. A modern-day fairy tale very much in the same spirit of Grimm's fairy tales and Beauty and the Beast, some have called this a precursor to Harry Potter.Young Sophie is a wallflower who marks her small-minded days as a faithful employee at her dearly departed father’s hat shop. Anne's College in Oxford, attending lectures by C. But instead of drawing upon Eastern mythology and folklore, this one is based on a popular 1986 children's book written by fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones (who studied at St. Released in Japan last November, Howl's Moving Castle is already another international blockbuster. In 2002, he earned the Oscar for Best Animated Feature with Spirited Away, continuing to make great strides in broadening the appreciation for Japanese anime through dense storytelling and occasionally breathtaking animation. His movies are acclaimed by critics and audiences alike-some have become the top grossing films in his own country while also delighting audiences all over the world. But many are calling 64-year-old Hayao Miyazaki the "Japanese Disney," and for good reason. Despite what you may see in the advertising, this is not your father's Walt Disney they only distribute the film.
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