Howl’s Moving Castle
A love story between an 18-year-old girl named Sophie, cursed by a witch into an old woman's body who encounters a wizard named Howl. Sophie departs from her home setting out to seek a cure to the curse, which takes her to Howl's strange moving castle. In the castle, Sophie meets Howl's fire demon, named Calcifer. Seeing that she is under a curse, the demon makes a deal with Sophie--if she breaks the contract he is under with Howl, then Calcifer will lift the curse that Sophie is under, and she will return to her 18-year-old shape.
The film was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and was animated by Studio Ghibli and is filled with beautiful cinematography of different scenes in period city and countryside landscapes.
Influenced by Miyazaki's opposition to the United States' invasion of Iraq in 2003, the film contains strong anti-war themes. Miyazaki stated that he "had a great deal of rage" about the Iraq war, which led him to make a film which he felt would be poorly received in the US. It also explores the theme of old age, depicting age positively as something which grants the protagonist freedom. The film contains feminist elements as well, and carries messages about the value of compassion.
In the movie, the main antagonist - who is the leader of one of the kingdoms, appears to have only sadistic motivations for creating conflict, and despite being omniscient, is unable to recognize the idiocy of the war until the very end of the story. This reflects Miyazaki's desire to show real-world conflicts as also being fueled by the somewhat arbitrary desires or personal motives of capricious politicians or government officials. Military presence and warfare are also emphasized, throughout the film with scenes in the bustling commercial district showing soldiers in colorful uniform standing out intentionally, almost like occupied France or Europe during WW1 or WW2.
The universe of Howl's Moving Castle is depicted as not having clear-cut villains and heroes; instead, the characters are complex, and even those that are initially portrayed in a negative light, such as Howl, are shown as capable of change. This parallels to the newer Star Wars movies in which the stories of defectors or other characters grey motives like Galen Erso.
All characters throughout the film come from different social classes, struggle with unique but also similar demons, and evolve and grow throughout the film. Even Howl’s castle is symbolic itself, as it breaks down and falls apart towards the end, almost symbolizing the freedom from rejection of materialism and hyper consumption.
Pollution is also emphasized throughout the film as both war vehicles and the castle produce clouds of black smoke throughout the film polluting the atmosphere.
The film contains a variety of lessons to learn from that still hold up today with one of the main themes being compassion towards those you can’t expect to benefit from and yet continuing to treat them with kindness anyway.
