Howl's Moving Castle

This was the promised re-watch after reading the original book.

Miyazaki clearly took the main characters, and the initial set up from the novel, but then used that material to tell a different story, albeit with a similar concluding episode.

That’s not to suggest the movie is not as good as the book. It is a different medium and condensing a book that takes many hours to read into a 90 minute movie is not always easy, especially with a complex book like this one. Major changes that I noted include removal of the door to our world, no sign of the dog, and more advanced technologies in the world of Howl.

And of course Miyazaki loves his flying machines and themes of war so these did form a large part in the revised story. But the characters were very much as described, and how I imagined them. And this being a Ghibli film the animation was spectacular – every frame was packed with both beauty and detail and had a sense of space and dimensionality that can put some real life movie scenes to shame.

Like every film from this studio there are sublime moments, often not part of the narrative but just something seen in passing. In this case the best of such moments was watching delightful countryside pass below us as we stand on the balcony of the moving castle. As we pass over a stream we see, just for a split second the blinding reflection of the sun on the water. Genius, and worth watching for that scene alone.