Howl's Moving Castle (film)
| Howl's Moving Castle | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Hayao Miyazaki |
| Produced by | Toshio Suzuki |
| Written by | Diana Wynne Jones (novel) Hayao Miyazaki (screenplay) |
| Starring | Christian Bale Jean Simmons Emily Mortimer Lauren Bacall Billy Crystal Blythe Danner Josh Hutcherson Crispin Freeman Jena Malone |
| Music by | Joe Hisaishi |
| Editing by | Takeshi Seyama |
| Distributed by | Toho (Japan) Buena Vista Home Entertainment (USA) Madman Entertainment (Australia) Optimum Releasing (UK) |
| Release date(s) | Japan: November 20 2004 United States: June 10,2005 United Kingdom: September 1,2005 Australia: September 22,2005 |
| Running time | 119 minutes |
| Country |  Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Preceded by | The Cat Returns |
| Followed by | Tales from Earthsea |
Howl's Moving Castle (ハウルの動く城 Hauru no Ugoku Shiro?) is a 2004 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli and based on Diana Wynne Jones' novel of the same name. Mamoru Hosoda, director of two seasons and one movie from the Digimon series, was originally selected to direct but abruptly left the project, leaving the then retired Miyazaki to take up the director's role.
The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 5, 2004 and was released in Japanese theaters on November 20, 2004. It went on to gross $231,710,455 worldwide,[1] making it one of the most financially successful Japanese films in history. The film was subsequently dubbed into English by Pixar's Peter Docter and distributed in North America by Walt Disney Pictures. It received a limited release in the United States and Canada beginning June 10, 2005 and was released nationwide in Australia on September 22 and in the UK the following September.
Contents |
Plot
Eighteen-year-old Sophie, who runs her late father's hat shop, has a chance encounter with the mysterious wizard Howl who takes a liking to her. The meeting attracts the attention of the Witch of the Waste, who has been seeking Howl's love for her own, and the Witch places a curse on Sophie, turning her into a 90-year-old woman with the inability to tell anyone about the curse. Sophie decides to seek out Howl in the Wastes, encountering and befriending a animated scarecrow she names Turpin Head. They eventually come across Howl's moving castle; inside, Sophie is greeted by the fire demon Calcifer that powers the castle and recognizes that Sophie has been cursed. Calcifer offers to break the curse in exchange if Sophie can break the bond between Howl and Calcifer. When Howl arrives, Calcifer covers for Sophie, claiming she is a housekeeper to keep the castle clean. As Sophie adjusts to life in the castle, she discovers that the front door is a magic portal that leads to several destinations. She also comes to learn that Howl is vain and immature, and that the Witch of the Waste's vengeful behavior was due to how Howl treated her in the past once he discovered her ugly appearance.
One day, Howl receives summons from two feuding nations, Porthaven and Kingsbury, each seeking his help under different aliases to fight in their war caused by the disappearance of Crown Prince Justin. Howl refuses to fight and suspects a trap by Kingsbury's Madame Suliman, his old mentor, and instead sends Sophie acting as his mother to respond to the summons. Along the way, Sophie encounters the Witch of the Wastes, and both are taken to the Madame. Madame Suliman is able to see through the ruse, and to show her power to Sophie, transforms the Witch into a helpless old lady, promising that Howl will meet a similar fate if he does not contribute to the war cause. Howl manages to rescue Sophie along with the Witch and Saliman's asthmatic errand dog Heen, but not before Suliman is able to determine Sophie's true identity and begins to track her down, knowing she can get to Howl that way.
Sophie learns from seeing Howl's dreams and from Calcifer that Howl transforms into a bird-like creature to escape his pursuers but each transformation makes it more difficult for him to return to his human form. However, Sophie's love and caring for Howl and the others in the castle have helped her to partially revert the curse that the Witch placed on her, and Howl has returned the favor by transforming the castle into a more beautiful version, including adding Sophie's hat shop as an exit from the front door. Sophie's mother Honey visits her one day, but Sophie discovers that Honey was blackmailed by Suliman, leaving a spy bug behind in the castle that has allowed Suliman to find its location and send her troops to capture Howl. As Howl transforms to draw the guards away, Sophie and Calcifer bring the castle to the Wastes though Calcifer's power is rapidly diminishing. The Witch of the Waste, seeing Howl's heart underneath Calcifer, attempts to grab it and burns herself; Sophie is forced to douse her with water but catches Calcifer in her motions, causing him to be reduced to a small flame and unable to retain control of the castle. Sophie and the others are thrown over a cliff as the castle falls to pieces around them.
Sophie recovers to find the remains of the front door in the castle's wreckage, and walks through it, finding herself in the past. She learns that Calcifer was really a falling star found by Howl, and to save Calcifer's life, Howl gave his heart to the spirit, causing him to lose the ability to love. Sophie returns to the present and finds Howl unconscious with the others. She takes Howl's heart from the Witch and puts it back in his chest, causing the bond between Howl and Calcifer to be broken; Calcifer returns to his original form and shoots off into the stars, however, this causes the remains of the castle to fall onto them. Turnip Head manages to stop the wreckage from harming anyone, and Sophie gives him a kiss, causing him to transform into his original form, the missing Prince Justin. The Prince thanks Sophie for breaking a curse that could only be broken by his true love, but Sophie reveals that she truly is in love with Howl, and kisses him. This causes Sophie's own curse to be broken, returning her to her youthful self. Prince Justin accepts Sophie's choice, and makes way to report his presence and put an end to the war. Madame Suliman, who has watched the events through the eyes of Heen, recognizes that the Prince has returned and calls a cease-fire. Howl constructs another flying magical castle for Sophie and their friends, powered by Calcifer who has returned under his own will to help Howl, and Sophie and Howl begin a romantic relationship.
Cast
The movie stars the following actors:
| Character | Japanese version | English version | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grandma Sophie | Chieko Baishō | Jean Simmons | |||||
| Howl | Takuya Kimura | Christian Bale | |||||
| Witch of the Waste | Akihiro Miwa | Lauren Bacall | |||||
| Calcifer | Tatsuya Gashūin | Billy Crystal | |||||
| Young Sophie | Chieko Baishō | Emily Mortimer | |||||
| Markl | Ryūnosuke Kamiki | Josh Hutcherson | |||||
| Madame Suliman | Haruko Katō | Blythe Danner | |||||
| Lettie | Yayoi Kazuki | Jena Malone | |||||
| Honey | Mayuno Yasokawa | Mari Devon | |||||
| Prince Justin/Turnip | Yō Ōizumi | Crispin Freeman | |||||
| King | Akio Ohtsuka | Mark Silverman | |||||
| Suliman's servants | Mitsunori Isaki Makoto Yasumura |
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| Heen (Dog) | Daijirō Harada | ||||||
| Madge | Rio Kanno | Liliana Mumy | |||||
| Kabuto | Tomoe Hanba | ||||||
| Soldiers | Ken Yasuda Yō Ōizumi |
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| Cake seller | Hiroyuki Morisaki | ||||||
| Hashinoue man | Shigeyuki Totsugi | ||||||
| Port City fish seller | Seiji Sasaki | ||||||
| Castle gatekeeper | Takuma Otomo | ||||||
| Additional voices | Manabu Muraji Keiko Tsukamoto Hiroshi Takahashi Rina Yamada Yōhei Ōbayashi Yukiko Mizuochi Izumi Matsuoka |
Carlos Alazraqui Newell Alexander Rosemary Alexander Julia Barnett Susan Blakeslee Leslie Carrara Mitch Carter David Cowgill Holly Dorff Moosie Drier Ike Eisenmann Will Friedle Bridget Hoffman Richard Steven Horvitz Sherry Hursey Hope Levy Christina MacGregor Joel McCrary Edie Mirman Daran Norris Peter Renaday Kristina Rutherford Warren Sroka |
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Differences between film and novel
Diana Wynne Jones did meet with representatives from Studio Ghibli but did not have any input or involvement in the production of the film. Miyazaki travelled to England in summer 2004 to give Jones a private viewing of the finished movie. She has been quoted as saying:
-
- "It's fantastic. No, I have no input—I write books, not films. Yes it will be different from the book—in fact it's likely to be very different, but that's as it should be. It will still be a fantastic film."[2]
As Jones noted, the film is significantly different from her original novel. Roughly the first third of the plot is similar, after which the movie branches off into original territory, flavored with many of Miyazaki's familiar themes: airships, redemption, solving one's own problems, beautiful natural landscapes, Victorian to World War II period European or Japanese societies (roughly 1860–1945), and cute non-human sidekicks. The focus is still on Sophie and her adventure while being cursed with old age, but the main action of the film's story takes place during a war, reminiscent of World War I (with bombing-attacks on civilian cities reminiscent of the Blitz of World War II, and monstrously-large Dreadnought style battleships), and located in a fantastical nation somewhat reminiscent of pre-World War I Alsace. Indeed, many buildings in the town are identical to actual buildings in the Alsatian town of Colmar, which Miyazaki acknowledged as the inspiration for its setting.
Where as the novel is concerned with Howl's womanizing and his attempts to weasel out of locating a lost wizard and a prince, the film has Howl avoiding helping in a national war for pacifist reasons, and deals with the consequences of this decision. This aspect of the film's plot is actually rooted in Miyazaki's political views as a pacifist — in an interview with Newsweek magazine, Miyazaki told the interviewer that the movie had started production "just as your country [the USA] had started the war against Iraq", and the subsequent rage he felt about the Iraq war "profoundly impacted" the film.[3]
The movie also delves into spectacular scenes of radically alternate realities co-existing within the normal reality of the main story, and phantasmagorical visuals are prominently featured throughout the second half of the film. The book has the protagonists detour for one chapter into the 20th century world, where Howl is known as Howell Jenkins. This element is not used in the film, although one of Howl's aliases is "The Great Wizard Jenkins."
Many of the book's characters are modified for the film. The character of Howl's apprentice, Michael Fisher, is a teenager (15) in the book but a young boy, "Markl", in the film. Sophie has only one sister in the movie compared to two in the book (although the other sister is alluded to as an aside near the film's opening). The Witch of the Waste, instead of looking young and beautiful, is a huge heavyset woman that later becomes an old crone; as opposed to the frightening villain terrorizing the characters in the book, the film's latter half transforms her into a "grandmother" character and is even taken into Howl's home. Calcifer, who is a scary looking fire demon in the book, is portrayed as an adorable little flame in the film, although twice he blazes up into a wicked-looking blue flame strongly reminiscent of his appearance in the book. Finally, while in the book the 'Wizard Suliman' is an ally, in the film this is changed to 'Madame Suliman', a villain who is similar in appearance to the book's Mrs. Penstemmon. Various other characters in the film are composites of the book's characters, with different motivations and personalities. Sophie and Howl themselves most strongly resemble Jones' characters (though Howl has a completely different background), but with gentler personas and less selfish motivations; that is, typical Jones character traits are softened into typical Miyazaki character traits.
The depiction of magic effects seem to be centered around stick-like figures of light or shadow that seem to represent shooting stars, demons, magical minions or aspects of the essence of magical power all at once. These "beings" make their appearance numerous times in the film: The "blob men" of the Witch of the Waste, the magical barrier on the ground around Kingsbury that disabled vehicles and magic, the shooting stars (which die upon contact with the Earth, especially bodies of water), as the ring of disabling magic that appears around the captured Witch of the Waste and the nearly-captured Howl (in this instance, the beings sing a childlike song as they hold hands and move in a slow ring around Howl and Sophie). The dual-nature of the demons seems to be that they are made of starlight, of normal flame, and also an essence of magic power in general.
Reception
The film was widely praised by critics earning an 85% average at film aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes. USA Today critic Claudia Puig praised it for its ability to blend "a childlike sense of wonder with sophisticated emotions and motives" while Richard Roeper called it an "insanely creative work". Other critics described it as "a visual wonder", "A gorgeous life-affirming piece", and "an animated tour de force." A dissenting view came from Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times who felt that it was one of Miyazaki's "weakest" films.[4] The film was also listed by Sight & Sound, the official magazine of the British Film Institute, as one of the best films of 2005. It was the only animated film to be included on the list.
Top ten lists
The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2005.[5]
- 2nd - Ella Taylor LA Weekly (tie)[5]
- 4th - Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times[5]
- 5th - Tasha Robinson The Onion[5]
- 6th - Lawrence Toppman, The Charlotte Observer[5]
- 6th - Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Chicago Reader (tie)[5]
- 8th - Michael Sragow, The Baltimore Sun[5]
- 8th - Michael Wilmington The Chicago Tribune[5]
- NA - Peter Rainer The Christian Science Monitor (Listed alphabetically)[5]
Awards
- Osella Awards for Technical Achievement; 61st Venice Film Festival
- Best Japanese Movie Overall; 2004 Mainichi Film Awards
- Excellence Prize, Animation; 2004 Japan Media Arts Festival
- Animation of the Year; 2005 Tokyo International Anime Fair
- Best Director (Hayao Miyazaki); 2005 Tokyo Anime Awards
- Best Voice Actor/Actress (Chieko Baisho); 2005 Tokyo Anime Awards
- Best Music (Joe Hisaishi); 2005 Tokyo Anime Awards
- Audience Award; 2005 Maui Film Festival
- 1st Runner Up, Golden Space Needle Award; 2005 Seattle International Film Festival
- Nomination, Best Animated Feature; 78th Academy Awards
Notes
- ↑ "All-Time Worldwide Box office". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on 2008-05-08.
- ↑ "FAQ / Howl's Moving Castle". The Hayao Miyazaki Web. Retrieved on 2008-05-08.
- ↑ Devin Gordon (2005). "A 'Positive Pessimist'". The Hayao Miyazaki Web. Retrieved on 2008-05-08.
- ↑ "Howl's Moving Castle (2005)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2008-05-08.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 "Metacritic: 2007 Film Critic Top Ten Lists". Metacritic. Retrieved on 2008-01-04.
External links
- Howl's Moving Castle at Nausicaa.net
- "ハウルの動く城 (Hauru no Ugoku Shiro)" (in Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. Retrieved on 2007-07-21.
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