Howl's Moving Castle

Watched it this afternoon, alone. Though, of course, I wasn't alone in the cinema. There were groups of students there, often making their presence known throughout the movie. Sigh~

Despite that, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

Before stepping into the cinema, I hadn't read the original book, nor come across reviews of it. Came back and surfed a bit to see whether my take of the movie is the same as online reviewers. Was surprised to see no reviews mentioning what I thought was the most important part of the movie.

Well...I guess the beauty of art is that its meaning is different to different people.. :)

& I hate it when I see reviewers say that this movie was just a sequence of beautiful scenes in a magical land, but the plot made no sense whatsoever. These reviewers have just so not gotten it! Sorry... I just feel I have to fiercely defend this movie when I read such no-brainer reviews.. am suddenly prompted to go leave a msg on IMDB again.. XD

[spoilers]

If [Spirited Away] was about Courage, then [Howl's Moving Castle] was certainly about Confidence. The witch, I felt, did nothing but make Sophie's outward appearance into what Sophie thought herself to be -- old at heart, not pretty, so then 'there's less to lose'. That's why when she's sleeping and at moments where she exudes that sort of self confidence, she appears to everyone as her youthful self. Howl, too, needed a lesson or two about confidence. He needed Sophie's love to give him the confidence to face up to his fears.

[/spoilers]

That's why it simply makes my teeth grind when I read reviews that criticize the lack of plot. The magic of Miyazaki is his ability to convey a message behind seemingly fleeting events. I don't know what the plot of the original book was like, and it may well be different from the movie, but sometimes you don't need to adhere strictly to the original source to come up with something genuinely beautiful.

In a nutshell: movie's highly recommended.