He allows the visuals set the stage for the kind of story we’re watching and the first few scenes set up the overall gist. But Miyazaki, of course, brings his own tendencies and point of view to the story, which actually makes it something of an anomaly for the director it’s at once definitely a Miyazaki film and completely not a Miyazaki film.Like all of the master’s work, Howl’s Moving Castle doesn’t spend too long telling the audience about the world we’ve entered, we just enter it and the story begins and he will show us what’s necessary and not explain what isn’t. The book is all about enchantments and curses and demons and things, all very common in English fantasy and favorite topics for Miyazaki given his previous films. Howl’s Moving Castle is based on a 1986 British fantasy novel by author Diana Wynn Jones, the first in her trilogy of books featuring the eponymous wizard Howl, a powerful, mercurial, and vain man who lives in, you guessed it, a castle that moves around and can turn into a giant bird.
For this film, 2004’s Howl’s Moving Castle, he would adapt a book that wasn’t even Japanese. With the exception of his first film, which was a continuation of an existing television anime and popular manga, only one of his films, Kiki’s Delivery Service, was based on material not created by Miyazaki himself. For his ninth film, Miyazaki would return to familiar ground with castles and magicians and curses and flying, but from a different point of view. He could have stopped making films and his legacy still would have been secured, and celebrated. His films all possessed a magical, fairy tale aspect, but his last two movies, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away had been deeply personal, much darker than his previous work, and emotionally taxing.
He’d made eight films in his nearly 3 decade career and produced many more with his company Studio Ghibli. If you’d like a refresher course, you can read my previous Miyazaki Masterclass essays right here.After his Oscar win with the magical Spirited Away, Miyazaki took a bit of a break.
We took the month of October off for Halloween purposes, but we’re back with the final three films by Hayao Miyazaki.
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