Howl's Moving Castle: The 15th Anniversary Screening

Rating: 10/10 (25 August 2019)

One of my most memorable screenings of the last 20 years has been attending the lone screening which took place in my area at the local "Art House" cinema of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle. Usually playing films which have just come out on disc, this sold out showing has always stood out to me,thanks to everywhere I looked there being a fellow Miyazaki fan filling the small screening room.
15 years later:
Looking at the listings for The Electric Cinema in Birmingham, (oldest working cinema in the UK)I checked their "Summer Family Films" tab,and was thrilled to find a 15th Anniversary Screening of Howl (in the original Japanese) was to take place soon. For the first time in all my viewings at cinemas,I stood in a line which went half-way down the street,picked up a lovely Inglorious Custards cocktail,and got set to witness Howl's castle moving again.
View on the film:
Guided by living scarecrow "Turnip Head" into Howl's moving castle, writer/directing auteur Hayao Miyazaki greets Sophie to a magnificence Steam Punk design,whistling from the 80 individual 19th century machinery segments agitating each other with every movement of the castle's legs shifting on a bustling sound of hot steam and fragile wooden foundations.produced digitally that transfers the 1400 storyboards of the hand-drawn backgrounds and the characters into a digital medium, Miyazaki pens the styles together with his distinctive stylisation.
Blossoming from the fluid animation sparkling in a beautiful vibrancy on the detailed,expressive character designs and razor sharp editing wrapping the audience in a soaring flight of fantasy atmosphere,Miyazaki sharpens the digital 3D rendering on the moving castle in a contrasting style, via the digital animation of the building sending it rolling along the silky hand-drawn backdrop. Adapting Diana Wynne Jones novel when he wanted to express his anger over the Iraq war, Miyazaki travels up the stairs to Madame Suliman's remote palace, who at a safe distance from the effects, shatters the floor with a all-consuming viciousness in keeping conflicts in a abrasive state.
Turning Sophie into a 90 year old, Miyazaki continues to brilliantly build upon his theme of the lead breaking out from primary focusing on themselves,in this case Sophie spreading a compassion to the residences of the moving castle,and even to the witch who cursed her. Initially scared of her old age appearance, Miyazaki threads his themes of compassion and a hatred of war with his recurring motif of a feminist aspect,lit in Sophie finding a solution to the war with a brave thoughtfulness against the volatile masculinity of Howl within his moving castle.