I’m back on catch-up film. This time, more from Studio Ghbli, in that studio’s 2004 adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’s novel Howl’s Moving Castle, with direction and screenplay by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki.
Sophie is a shy young hatter in a Victorian era setting who believes herself unlovely. But after a chance encounter with a wizard – and the Witch of the Waste – she is cursed into being an elderly woman, and becomes drawn into a battle that reflects the start of a war in the human world.
Utterly astonishing – not least in its portrayal of the positives of age – this is simply wonderful, but also its deeply anti-war position. It nods to The Wizard of Oz and much more, but it’s also very much of itself.
It’s fabulously animated, with a wonderful steampunk look, and a very real sense of morality as well as humour.
I watched the English dubbed version, with a fabulous voice cast – not least the utter legend that is Lauren Bacall as the Witch if the Waste, and Billy Crystal as a little fire demon.
Quite simply wonderful.
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