Ghibli Fest is bringing Howl's Moving Castle back to theaters, which means it's time to revisit one of the movie's great little visual puzzles.
The story in the movie is relatively simple: Sophie, who was cursed by the Witch of the Waste, suddenly turned into a 90-year-old woman. Hoping to break the curse, she sets out on her own, begins working at the official castle and helps the great wizard Howl figure out his bad.
This is a Hayao Miyazaki movie so the visuals are of course lavish and gorgeous. In the 20 years since Howl first debuted, the level of detail in Howl's space alone is legendary on the Internet. However, as Akihiko Yamashita, Howl's supervising animator, says, Sophie's journey — especially surrounding her own curse — was a difficult one for the animators to tackle.
“Of course the characters change, the costumes change, the hairstyle changes. But in Sophie's case, her age changes depending on her emotions,” Yamashita told Polygon.
The problem was finally resolved by Miyazaki's initiative: “He said, I've found the formula for why Sophie changed,” Yamashita recalls. “She [Sophie] reinforced that curse in the film.
“And so the way she reacts to other people, the way she relates is different. So when I realized that, I realized I could draw Sophie the way she is from this change, even in one scene.”
Image: Studio Ghibli
The results are historic; Howl's Moving Castle is a beloved classic, famous for the way the plot traverses the world's rich, surreal magical world. Very quickly, viewers are introduced to a vast world of fantasy and combat.
The anchor of it all is Sophie, stuck navigating the world in a way she's doomed to—and suddenly and strangely discovering that a change in circumstances makes her stronger than ever. run out of. When she begins to forget herself—and especially her self-consciousness—not only is she able to effect change and survive in the world, but she is also able to break the witch's curse. . It's a thoughtful approach to tension, an elegant way to embody the old adage that your uniqueness is what people really see in you. It's the kind of story that gives you something new every time you watch it, no matter how familiar you are with the lush images.
“I watched it last year when it aired on television and I happened to watch it midway through. And then it was so interesting that I watched it to the end,” Yamashita laughed. “Howl's Moving Castle is a difficult movie to understand, so if you only watch it once, it will be difficult to understand. […] Even I, when I rewatched the movie, had new discoveries about the movie.”
Howl's Moving Castle will be in theaters from September 26 to October 26. 3.
