Watch “ Howl’s Moving Castle – an Underrated Masterpiece“: The video essay below shows us how, in the bleakest of circumstances, Howl’s Moving Castle fights for comfort, compassion, and kindness. That fantastical consolation that people in power can, and perhaps will, change for the better. And second, that powerful, magnetic promise that moral compasses can materialize and inspire selflessness. First, the inherent Miyazaki warmth of small, cumulative details: the enviable breakfasts, the flights of fancy, and the sprawling fields of wildflowers. In response, Howl, our impetuous radical, fights fire with fire and is consumed in - quite literally - a dehumanizing cycle of violence.Īnd yet, the film, for all its bleak on-the-nose-ness, undertakes two very different comforting gestures. War, in Howl’s Moving Castle, is capricious, an act instigated by leaders with shallow interests and an aloof attitude towards the consequences of their actions. The film depicts a hawkish nation-state embroiled in a war waged for the sake of war itself. It’s no secret that Howl’s Moving Castle is Miyazaki’s response to, and protest of, the Iraq War. The film is also the clearest and most damning anti-war film in a career littered, if not defined, by pleas for pacifism and compassion. Loosely based on Diana Wynne Jones’ novel of the same name, Howl’s Moving Castle is a love story between Sophie, an idealistic if shy hat-maker, and the childish, self-indulgent wizard, Howl. But the film is also one of the most texturally complex and thematically thorny films in Miyazaki’s filmography. Howl’s Moving Castle enthusiastically ticks that box. If you throw a dart at Hayao Miyazaki’s IMDb page, you will almost certainly hit a work of indelible coziness. This brings us to Howl’s Moving Castle, a film that in spite of - and in response to - its own grimness, remains unabashedly reassuring. And if the unapologetically anti-war masterpiece by an auteur brings you peace, that little slice of heaven is yours, baby. If cheesy mid-’90s romcoms do it for you, lean in. If Italian splatter films bring you bliss, so be it. These are the movies you hold close to your chest in abject darkness or a cozy afternoon. But, ultimately, if a film feels like chicken noodle soup to you, that shouldn’t be a matter of debate. Of course, the “comfiness” of a film can, to a degree, be objective. Today, we’re watching a video about Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle.Ĭomfort food films should never be contentious. Welcome to The Queue - your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web.

Howls moving castle movie