Moving

Rating: 10/10 (27 September 2006)

Well, I saw this movie when it first came out with my current partner, near the beginning of our relationship. So, I'm biased.
Yes, I love this movie.
It's like a more grown-up version of Spirited Away. The characters are rounder and warmer and, if anything, more magical. The magic is richer and cleverer and darker and more compelling. The dream has burst into reality, the magic is not dreamy, but *awake*, wide awake and sizzling with wild delights, in the form of a castle that walks around on chicken legs with a fire-demon at its heart. It's every bit as good, the emotional tones are even more beautiful than in that other masterpiece of the unbridled childish imagination.
My favourite scene is the flashback when Howl watches the falling star people fizzing across the sky to the high, clear, pale blue lake near his little house in the mountains, and catches one and starts talking to it. It lights up his face in the dark...
You either love this sort of thing or you don't.
And, better still, it has a *grown-up* fairy story, the story of a girl who must cast away her self-imposed prison of excessive common sense and dare to dream.
Again the plot is meandering, but it's even less important in this than in Miyazaki's other movies. The last scene is a breath-taking and unashamedly primitive romantic confection. Just like Disney used to be...
10 stars. 100 stars... 1,000 stars...