With his films “Princess Mononoke” (1997) and the Oscar-winning “Spirited Away” (2001), animation director Hayao Miyazaki attained the kind of worldwide attention his previous pictures had garnered in Japan.
He keeps threatening to retire, but here’s another eye-filling feature, “Howl’s Moving Castle.” Once again, I found myself dazzled by Miyazaki’s visual abundance but somewhat lost by his storytelling.
The story is set in the countryside of some previous, Jules Verne-like era. (It looks a little like another Japanese animated film, “Steam Boy.”) Flying machines fill the skies, and big armored zeppelins drop bombs – there seems to be a war going on, which Miyazaki has no patience for.
And then there is Howl’s moving castle. Howl is a young wizard, and the inventor of a huge ambulatory castle-city – the thing is constructed of alcoves and balconies and hidden rooms. It “walks” on giant mechanical legs, like a metal chicken, and it looks as though it’s going to fall apart, but it doesn’t.
A teenage girl named Sophie enters Howl’s world. Minding her own business one day, she is turned into an aged crone by the Wicked Witch of the Waste. Sophie goes to Howl’s castle hoping he might help her.
What happens after that, I couldn’t possibly synopsize. Sophie has an audience with a princess, a scarecrow on a stick becomes her friend, and a fire demon in the castle turns into a major character (he’s Howl’s friend, and he keeps the entire moving castle fueled).
Miyazaki knows magic. He gets gorgeous things not merely in the amazing castle and the big vistas, but also in places such as Howl’s room, which drips with jewels and trinkets. The characters are wonderful too, from the spunky Sophie to the mercurial, rather vain Howl.
Hard to say what kids will make of it – it can be a little intense for young ones, and a little long (119 minutes) for older ones. Miyazaki really doesn’t gear his films for children, although his mind moves in a childlike way. For fans of animation, that’s more than enough.
“Howl’s Moving Castle” will be shown both in its original Japanese version (with English subtitles) and a dubbed English version at the Metro; the dubbed version alone will play at the Uptown. I saw the dubbed print, which has only one really distracting celebrity voice (Billy Crystal as the fire spirit), and even there Crystal is on his best behavior. It also has Jean Simmons and Emily Mortimer as the old and young Sophie, Christian Bale as Howl, and Lauren Bacall as the witch.
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