Howl's Moving Movie

Watching Miyazaki's latest animated feature, Howl's Moving Castle, last Sunday in the El Capitan theatre (in Japanese with subtitles -- thank you, Disney!) what struck me most was the contrast between familiarity and freshness.

There is much familiar in Howl. The movie adapts a British young adult novel which takes place in a world where -- rather like Shrek's world -- the magical icons of various fairy tales are real. The setting looks like turn-of-the century Europe; it uses the Western fantasy-literature versions of wizards and witches; and like most post-modern fairy tales (and several pre-modern ones) the plot weaves together several metaphors for psychological experiences and coming-of-age journeys. There are many elements familiar to Miyazaki fans too: His fascination with weird aircraft; his young female protagonist, who learns her own strength through supernatural adversity; his middle aged and elderly women, who hold positions of power (sometimes temporarily); his clean and attractive character designs; and even the European setting, which he used effectively in Laputa, Kiki's Delivery Service and Porco Rosso (all now out on DVD in the US -- thanks again, Disney!)

Further, as with Miyazaki's last several films, this one deals with the interaction of the supernatural world with the mundane world. Here, as in Princess Mononoke and Kiki's Delivery Service, the so-called normal folk accept magic as a fact of life; witches, wizards and demons are to be used when useful, and avoided when dangerous.

Yet despite the familiarity, watching the film I was amazed at how, by comparison, so many movie plots are predictable and unsurprising. So many film stories move through their preordained stages like set gymnastic routines, only varying the placement of the apparatus a little to distinguish one film from another. Yet when watching a Miyazaki film, you're assured you won't be able to predict where the story is going. It twists and turns, with the powerfull becoming helpless and the downtrodden becoming powerful in the blink of an eye. Like most fairy tales, it deals with transformation and empowerment; but how it uses those storytelling tools will startle and delight you. Part of the magic is that Miyazaki refuses to use two-dimensional stereotypes as characters. I don't know how much of the depth lent to Sophie, Howl, the Witch of the Waste, and even the fire demon Calcifur and the animated scarecrow Turnip Head comes from the source material and how much was provided (or preserved) by Miyazaki, but the characters are full-blooded enough to seize the story from any rote pattern and spread it so that it billows like a sail in one of Miyazaki's beloved windstorms.

If you get the chance, I heartily recommend you see this movie in a theatre, on a big screen. You'll be glad you did.