Howl’s Moving Castle is a Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Despite its beautiful scenes and evident drawing mastery, the movie doesn’t make sense.
I was watching it last night and couldn’t stop wondering how this movie was ever produced. There are nonsensical occurrences from the beginning to the end. There is no actual plot. Characters lack development and motivation.
It must be the most incongruous piece of escapism I have ever seen.
You might try this comparison between the book and the movie.
Yeah. I didn’t expect too many people to have watched this movie.
The little people in our family are familiar with both the book and the director’s previous work. I did listen to their explanations although I don’t think they sounded particularly convincing.
I remember liking it well enough, but I don’t remember much about the plot. At the time, I didn’t think it was any sillier than the average Japanese cartoon.
I don’t understand the objection - the film has a plot, a main character who is changed by the events in the story (and also quite literally changed), and it addresses both war and feminism. It has fantasy and science fiction elements in that very peculiar Japanese way that a lot of anime does.
Hayao Miyazaki doesn’t bash the audience over the head like a Hollywood movie does but in my opinion that improves it. He did later write that he expected the film would be poorly received in the US because one of the more obvious themes in the movie is its anti-war stance motivated by his disgust with the Iraq War.
I am a huge Miyazaki fan and have seen all 11 of his films but yeah I did find this one a bit baffling and incoherent though there was enough great artistry to partially make up for it. IIRC Ebert who was also a big Miyazaki fan gave it a poor review. I have noticed though that in online discussions of the best Miyazaki/Ghibli films Howl’s Moving Castle often ranks higher than I would expect, so clearly it does appeal to some. I will probably give it another shot some time and I don’t think I have actually watched it the whole way through since I first saw it on release.
I will also say that you shouldn’t let Howl dissuade you from watching other Miyazaki films. While they seldom have clear-cut plots like Pixar films, they are usually more coherent than Howl and the best of them like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away are masterpieces IMO.
Miyazaki’s animated films are generally non-linear in their plots, reflecting a fantasy sensibility where sometimes things just happen. I would say this is true generally of a lot of Japanese anime, although I am not a connoisseur myself.
It always strikes me as odd that people who like magic in their films (from Snow White to the latest Marvel epic) nevertheless want the magic to be somehow logical. If magic existed I don’t see why it would work that way. Such a world would be chaotic and full of horror.
I don’t watch Howl for sense. I love it because it’s beautiful and funny.
Reading the synopsis, it doesn’t sound any sillier than Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland or The Phantom Tollbooth.
Since Netflix recently obtained a bunch of Studio Ghibli movies, I’ve been rewatching them and catching up on the ones I’ve missed. A few weeks ago, I rewatched Howl’s Moving Castle and had much the same reaction. In movies like Spirited Away, events are kind of random, but Howl is exceptionally so. But as always I enjoy the beauty of the animation.
It has a plot in the sense that events follow one another, but there is little logical connection between them. Events seem to happen at random for no particular reason and without any motivation. Why does the Witch of the Waste cast a spell on Sophie? Who enchanted Turniphead and why? Who the hell is Markl? Now I don’t insist that everything in a fantasy movie be spelled out, and maybe it’s supposed to be just impressionistic rather than make logical sense, but most of the time I was just going WTF?
I don’t understand, what didn’t make sense?
the Witch curses Sophie because she was in contact with Howl earlier.
Turniphead is cursed because of the war.
Markl is Howl’s apprentice.
That’s all pretty obvious in the movie, without even reading the book.
In the first three (I haven’t read the last), although there are a lot of silly and somewhat random incidents, the plot is fairly linear and mostly moves toward a singular clear goal. That’s not the case in Howl’s Moving Castle. (And if you haven’t actuall seen it, I don’t think you’ll have insight into what we are talking about.)
Right!
That doesn’t make sense.
That doesn’t make sense. Actually, it seems the war started because he was cursed and disappeared. But who cursed him and why? Did they want to start a war, or did they curse him for some other reason and the war started because he couldn’t be found?
It’s not evident that he’s learned very much. He hardly does anything magical. He disguises himself as an old wizard, but that’s about it. He functions mainly as a choreboy. He’s pretty much a pointless character in the movie.
You’ve pretty much given non-explanations so far.
I have enjoyed both.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the movie. Like all of Miyazaki’s films, it’s stunningly beautiful and has some incredible images. But I just prefer something like Princess Mononoke, which is equally fantastical but has a reasonably clear plot, and the motivations of most of the characters make some sense. I love Spirited Away, even if it has a lot of things that seem to be random; it’s just more coherent than Howl is.
That is about what I was thinking.
Honestly - it isn’t much different than a story about a girl and her parents visiting an amusement park, and the parents end up as pigs, or a fish girl.
His films just are not Hollywood style films.
She had a love/hate prior-rejection thing going with Howl, apparently. So - jealousy, as far as I could tell.
Yes, that’s what I mean.
Clearly someone who didn’t like him, or his country. Didn’t need to know that for the rest of the story to make sense, especially as that revelation only comes at the end.
I would have thought specifically to start the war, given the story as presented (it’s different in the book). But the specifics aren’t important to the story.
Do we have any idea how long he’s been an apprentice?
Characters don’t have to have a “point”.
I’ve always really liked it, One of my favorite animated films. The only thing I don’t like is that Billy Crystal’s voice(yeah I prefer to watch Dubs. 
). For some reason It breaks the immersion for me. I like him in general but not here.