[donaldscrankshaw] Donald: Review of *Howl's Moving Castle*

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Posted by Donald:
Review of *Howl's Moving Castle*
http://www.donaldscrankshaw.com/posts/1206207541.shtml


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   I caught Howl's Moving Castle for the first time on Cartoon Network
   last Sunday, and greatly enjoyed it. This is hardly surprising, as
   it's a Studio Ghibli film, and their work is always astounding. Studio
   Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio responsible for such classics as
   Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. I enjoy all their movies. If
   you're not familiar with the story of Howl's Moving Castle, it
   concerns a teenaged hatmaker named Sophie who runs afoul of the Witch
   of the Waste, who turns her into a crone. She runs away from home and
   takes shelter inside Howl's moving castle. The Wizard Howl has a nasty
   reputation of capturing pretty girls so he can eat their hearts and/or
   steal their souls, although it turns out that's just a rumor. In truth
   he's a vain and irresponsible young man who is nevertheless remarkably
   kind to the cursed girl, who takes up a position as the cleaning lady
   for him, his fire demon, Calcifer, and his young apprentice, Markl.
   Since Sophie is, in truth, an attractive young girl under a curse, and
   Howl really is a handsome young man, you can probably see where this
   is going.
   Okay, so that part was a tad predictable, but it was still a great
   movie. Since it's Studio Ghibli, it was of course beautiful. Great
   animation, from the oily shadow creatures to the falling stars to the
   walking castle. The action scenes were big and busy without beng
   confusing. The voices were well done, although I thought Sophie's old
   lady voice was less stiff than her young girl one, and Howl
   occasionally sounded sedated. Billy Crystal did the best job, as you'd
   expect from an old pro. His Calcifer had the funniest lines, and the
   delivery to match. The love story, though a tad predictable, didn't
   feel contrived, and the sense of drama was quite powerful.
   The one thing I had trouble with is what I usually do with a Studio
   Ghibli film (as I mentioned in [2]my remarks on Spirited Away). I came
   away rather confused on a number of points. Granted, their stories
   involve magic, and magic doesn't always make sense, but someone
   familiar with fantasy can usually figure out the internal logic of a
   fantasy world, since fantasy writers usually have a pretty good idea
   how such things work and usually like to make those things clear by
   the end. In a movie, there's not always as much explanation, but
   still, most don't have you walking away, scratching your head and
   wodering what happened. Or at least I don't usually like that kind.
   I enjoyed this one anyway, but there are a few things that bothered me
   (spoilers hidden below):

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    1. The first and biggest problem was how Sophie kept alternating
       between old woman and teenaged girl. She turns young a total of
       four times: once when Howl checks on her when she's asleep, once
       when she's defending Howl to the king's minister, once when Howl
       shows her his secret garden, and finally, and permanently, at the
       end, when she decides to save Howl. Now, you can argue that all
       but the first are keyed off of her love for Howl, which may be
       true. And the first may be showing how Howl sees her (it's pretty
       clear he saw through the spell early on). However, what ends the
       other two is not so much doubting her love, but a loss of
       self-confidence. She has a pretty low self-esteem, and despite
       being quite as attractive as any anime girl at the beginning,
       doesn't view herself as attractive, and the viewer is often left
       wondering if she feels being old suits her better. So there's a
       plausible explanation, but it's not too clear.
    2. Another, related, issue, is that if Howl knew about the curse, why
       didn't he try to remove it? Calcifer claimed that he himself had
       the ability, but wanted help from Sophie first (which she was only
       able to deliver near the end). It seems as though Howl could
       either remove it himself or make Calcifer do it, but he didn't.
       Which leads back to the first question. If Sophie's own lack of
       self-confidence was keeping her from breaking the curse, then that
       may explain why Howl couldn't just do it for her.
    3. It turns out that Calcifer has Howl's heart--it was part of a
       bargain between them. It's implied, though never outright stated,
       that without the heart Calcifer would die. Yet Calcifer's
       convinced that if Sophie returns the heart, he and Howl will both
       live. How did he know?

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   With this many questions, I couldn't leave it alone. So I bought the
   book. Howl's Moving Castle is adapted from a book of the same name by
   Diana Wynne Jones. I just finished the book the other night, and I
   very much enjoyed it. To be honest, I think the movie is better, but
   that may just be because I saw the movie first. The book was still
   very good, and in many ways less confusing. But it was also very, very
   different. More spoilers as I try to explain below.

   ([6]show)

    1. The first difference is the world. It seems to be in the
       industrial age in the movie, with trains and cars and flying
       machines, but no electricity that I could see. In the book, we're,
       at best, in the Renaissance era, although Howl hails from a more
       advanced society. Don't worry, his magic is still magic, not
       technology.
    2. In personality, Sophie and Howl were largely the same. The major
       differences were that Howl was very much a womanizer in the book,
       who would pursue women until they fell in love with him, and then
       lose interest. It was strongly implied that it was his lack of a
       heart that made him like this, and that he very much did want to
       fall in love to stay, but was unable to. Sophie still lacked
       self-confidence in the book, but it was less about her appearance
       than her fate as the oldest, who never has the fortune of the
       youngest child. As an old lady, she was quite brazenly nosy, too.
       The biggest difference in Sophie, though, was that in the book she
       had a strong magical gift, the ability to talk objects to life.
       This actually explained quite a few things. First, it explained
       why Howl was unable to cure her of the curse. He tried, without
       her knowing, but she was keeping it on herself, as sort of an
       unconscious disguise. Second, it explains how Sophie was able to
       put Howl's heart back and keep Calcifer alive, using her own
       unique brand of magic.
    3. Calcifer was largely the same in personality, although his
       appearance was a lot less devilish in the movie than the book.
       Markl, Howl's apprentice, was greatly different. In the movie,
       he's a cute little boy, definitely younger than ten. In the book,
       he's a young man of fifteen, named Michael, and plays a much
       larger role in helping Howl with his magic.
    4. I won't even get into the scarecrow and the dog, since I haven't
       mentioned them yet. Just trust me that they're entirely different
       people.
    5. In the movie, Sophie has one sister, Lettie, and we only meet her
       once. In the book, there are two sisters, Lettie and Martha, and
       they play a largerer role. For a while, Howl's actually courting
       Lettie, and Michael and Martha end up together. (Things are even
       more confusing as Lettie and Martha trade places, but Lettie's
       found out while disguised as Martha, so there are are two
       Letties.)
    6. The biggest difference is probably the Witch of the Waste. In the
       movie, she goes from villain to ally halfway through, when she's
       stripped of her power, and the Royal Wizardess, Suliman, and the
       army, become the main villains. This is kind of thematic of Studio
       Ghibli, since they often have an anti-war theme, and the war
       caused by the disappearance of a prince plays a major part in the
       movie. Well, none of that comes into play in the book. There's no
       war, just a suggestion of war. The missing prince is the king's
       brother, and he vanished searching for the male Wizard Suliman,
       who was cursed by the Witch of the Waste. The Witch remains the
       villain up until the end, and after she's gone, there's her demon
       to deal with. The Wizardess Suliman seems based on Howl's old
       tutor from the book, Mrs. Pentstemmon, who, while a bit
       overbearing, is definitely good, and who is killed by the Witch of
       the Waste.

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   So, if you've read all that, you may be wondering why I prefer the
   movie if the book made more sense. Well, there are a couple of things.
   In the book, the moving castle is just a front--no one actually lives
   in it, whereas in the movie, that's where they live. This has a
   tremendous appeal, not just visually, although that is a part of it,
   such as when Sophie goes out on the balcony and watches the land go
   by. And while I found Sophie reverting to young age and back
   confusing, I thought it offered a great deal of dramatic tension. But
   at the bottom, I think a lot of it comes of seeing the movie before
   reading the book. They're both very good, and I recommend them highly.

References

   1. http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=backoftheenve-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B000CDGVOE&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=FFFFFF&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr
   2. http://www.donaldscrankshaw.com/posts/1133361995.shtml
   3. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/donaldscrankshaw/posts/1206207541.html
   4. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/donaldscrankshaw/posts/1206207541.html
   5. http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=backoftheenve-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=006441034X&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=FFFFFF&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr
   6. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/donaldscrankshaw/posts/1206207541.html
   7. file://localhost/var/www/powerblogs/donaldscrankshaw/posts/1206207541.html