film, eyeballs, brain

(Image stolen from Le Quotidien du Cinema.)

There’s not much I can write about Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle that The Former Makeweight hasn’t already written, in a series of finely detailed (and, as she herself claims, obsessive — I mean that in jest, of course) entries, on her blog Getaway.

As usual, Miyazaki’s visual sense is exquisite, with the castle itself looking like a living, breathing creature (and, as always, no one does flying scenes like Miyazaki does, which we see in a triumphant early scene). It’s also probably his most surreal film to date, what with a jumping scarecrow, a fire demon with the voice of Billy Crystal (not as severely miscast as others have mentioned), a young wizard with a huge magic beard, and a Howl that kept reminding me, unfortunately (particularly when we see him in his overstuffed, toy-littered bedroom, agonizing over his beauty), of Michael Jackson. The narrative is also this loosely connected sprawl — at some point the Poeta turned to me and asked, “Am I the only one who finds this all incomprehensible?” — though a kind of dream logic kicks in during the last half-hour or so and one simply has to sit back and drink up the images. Worth watching, definitely, though it doesn’t have the epic sweep of Princess Mononoke or the eloquent simplicity of My Neighbor Totoro (probably my favorite Miyazaki film).

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