Is there a phrase that means the opposite of “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts“? That when you try to fit all the pieces together, there’s always gaps, always holes, something that makes you think there’s some vital component missing. Whatever you’re doing still works, but there’s something that’s just a little off about it. I need that phrase to describe Howl’s Moving Castle which, despite having all of the elements of a Miyazaki film, doesn’t hang together like one. On rewatching this, I found myself wishing this was my first exposure to Hayao Miyazaki, or even to anime in general (the reason this lands in the Top 250, I suspect, is that this may have been many people’s first exposure to both intelligent mature anime and to Hayao Miyazaki), because then perhaps I wouldn’t be holding it to such a high standard.
Sofie (Chieko Baishô), a plain young woman, is cursed by the Witch of the Wastes (Akihiro Miwa) to appear as an old woman. She seeks out the only person she knows who could possibly break the curse: the infamous Howl (Takuya Kimura), a powerful and reclusive wizard known for devouring the hearts of beautiful women. Thinking herself safe from Howl while she looks so grandmotherly, she works as his housekeeper while learning her advanced age isn’t as much of a burden as she initially imagined it to be. As Sofie grows in confidence, she also grows closer to Howl, and learns how he lost his heart (both figuratively and literally) making a bargain with the demon Calcifer (Tatsuya Gashûin) to power his Baba Yaga-eque castle. There’s a side plot involving a war between nations that Howl is being summoned for but will not participate in, and that’s where the dissonance starts to creep in. There’s no war in the original novel; Miyazaki says he added the war subplot as production on the film coincided with the beginning of the Iraq war. It’s not handled poorly, but it is weirdly and abruptly resolved quite literally as the credits are rolling, a clear indicator that it just wasn’t meant to be a part of this story. Much of the film is left unexplained, either from being lost in translation from the novel or between cultures – one could argue that a lot of Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke are similarly impenetrable to someone unfamiliar with Japanese animism, but that doesn’t take away the feeling that something does not add up. That said, Howl’s Moving Castle is still full of amazingly nuanced animation and colourful characters, and a slightly below par Studio Ghibli film is still better than the vast majority of films as a whole.
sarcasmbeast 