Howl’s Moving Castle
If you are a fan of the Studio Ghibli genre of films, seeing Howl’s Castle will leave you pleased.
No spoilers.
Howl’s castle is a great film which revolves around a protagonist who perseives herself as an ordinary girl in ordinary circumstances which finds herself compeled to believe herself capable of managing challenges beyond herself.
This; in itself, is a storyline.
One, that yours trully, finds extraordinarly resonent and appreciative of.
Sophie: our protagonist. is a ordinary girl in ordinary times. She is the eldest daugher who has lost her father and who’se mother and sister(s) are considered fairer and more popular than she.
And yet, despite magic spells; circumstance; etc: finds herself with little other than core values (that the studio ghibli folks always adhere to along the lines of chutzpa, friendliness, kindness, and generosity of spirit and a willingness for adventure and challenge outside of one’s conventional relm) has little else to drive her outside of her norm.
While naysayers unused to a non hottie youngun hero in a miyazaki film might find cognitative disonance with this film; one can see over the lifetime of miyazaki’s works; an overylayed appreciation and progression towards mature and forthrwright value’s being parlayed in storyline.
The character development is strong; the voiceover acting acceptable (unlike one’s personal penchants in say… princess mononoke) and the storyline extraordiarly palatable and timely for a generation that may be addressing both personal dealings with the elderly and dealing with such; and personal experiences and the affectations and expectations of interacting with this particular demographic.
Overall, it’s a beauteous film that provides timely and well timed storytelling associated with love, expectations within a person’s lifetime, and a willingness to re-engage and redifine what “family” means inspite of circumstance.
In other words.
It rawked. And it makes me think strongly that I’ve; in my short lifetime; made the appropriate decisions and actions about living and loving and accepting; and giving within my own myopic community. And how forgiveness moves beyond that. How frailtieis are idiculously human and forgiveable and how the nobility of a person’s intentions must be heartfelt beleived in despite past historities and previous weaknesses.
And that curses that one has upon oneself from one’s childhood (self imposed) or from one’s more recent present, can be forgiven and resolved with little more than a kiss of pure intent and emotion.
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