June 10, 2005
HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE is the ninth film directed by Hayao Miyazaki. He’s only done three more in the twenty years since, so I guess it counts as late Miyazaki. When I saw it back then I went to a subtitled screening, so this time I tried it with English dialogue, and that worked well too.
It’s a story about Sophie (Emily Mortimer, THE 51st STATE), a young woman who makes hats in a shop founded by her late father. When her sister Lettie (Jena Malone, FOR LOVE OF THE GAME), a baker, encourages her to find something she loves rather than staying shackled to the family business she swears she’s content doing this.
Then one night after close this terribly rude rich lady (Lauren Bacall, THE BIG SLEEP) comes into the shop and starts saying the hats are tacky. To quote THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE, “we’re a business with posted hours,” so get the fuck out. But this lady is actually the Witch of the Waste, who has come not to look for headwear, but to curse Sophie by turning her 90 years old. Then she’s out of there in a palanquin carried by her henchmen, oily black blob people with nice coats and masquerade masks. (read the rest of this shit…)
