HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE

Japanese films are weird. Regardless of whether the movie is good or bad, wondrous, well acted, visually engaging, gross, whatever, my primary impression always seems to be one of profound weirdness. Somehow, Japanese films manage to be more foreign than anything else out there. This phenomenon seems to cross genres and target audiences, from kids movies like Totoro to Kurosawa. I find Chinese cinema to be far more recognizable for some reason. Hayao Miyazaki makes quintessentially weird Japanese movies. Don’t get me wrong, I love almost everything he’s done, they’re all stunning visual gems, with more heart and innovation than any American animation studio (Pixar and Brad Bird aside, of course) has managed for many years. But seriously. Black sludge monsters with sailor’s hats? Deer with human faces? Huge psychic mystical bug creatures?!

Howl’s Moving Castle just came out in the states, and I got a chance to see one of the first screenings at the Pacific Film Archive here at Berkeley. I arrived at 2:30 for a 3pm showing and there was a line around the building. I should have figured. This ain’t suburban Connecticut. I took my place at the end of the line, the line of people waiting to fill the seats of those who bought tickets in advance and didn’t show up. Amazingly, some guy walked out with a ticket, asked if I wanted it, and proceeded to sell it to me for the same price he bought it. I should have realized that this unprecedented stroke of good luck could not go without punishment, and indeed, I rear-ended a guy in traffic later in the afternoon, my first car accident ever. Yay.

Howl is definitely no exception to the weird rule. Like those black sludge monsters in sailor’s hats? Freaky. Very similar to that shadow creature in Spirited Away, but still, freaky. Even a perfectly straightforward idea like a man who turns into a man-bird (bird-man? Mird? Birdan?) looks completely surreal in Miyazaki’s hands. Notably, this movie doesn’t feature your Standard Miyazaki Heroine. You know, the plucky-but-demure young girl who looks exactly the same in every movie. Actually, it does, but she’s bewitched into the form of an old woman for most of it. But even that is odd, because she seems to keep shifting back to her younger features depending on what she is feeling, but not at all in an obvious way. There are intergrades that are made all the more underhanded by minimalist anime cartoon rendering. Is that a wrinkle, or did the animator just draw her from a strange angle? This kind of visual ambiguity is something animation would seem to excel at, but this is the first time I’ve seen it done (or noticed it).

It’s been said before, but Miyazaki is undoubtedly the world’s greatest purveyor of magic in cinema. No other movies in recent memory elicits the same kind of deep-seated wonder and awe in me, the kind I usually only feel gazing at some particularly spectacular piece of wilderness. There’s some depth to be probed in the relationship between magic, wilderness, and awe in Miyazaki’s work, but I am far too dumb and lazy. The Incredibles is still my favorite movie of all time, but watching it is like meeting up with old friends, much like re-reading Harry Potter or ElfQuest (apparently I am still 7 years old). But watching a Miyazaki movie is like meeting a sympathetic extraterrestrial, almost inhuman, but with enough common ground for empathy. Certainly worth your money.