It tugs at my soul

Rating: 9/10 (1 February 2007)

For some reason, I always go into watching films by Miyazaki with a more than unexpected amount of hesitation. And yet, I usually find myself remarkably surprised and, in the end, both moved and thoroughly entertained. This happened when I watched both Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. There's a very unique feel to the films by Miyazaki and it's immediately foreign, yet after a little time, I find it tugging at my soul in surprising ways.
Howl's Moving Castle is about a young girl named Sophi, who gets turned into a 90-year old woman by a curse and ends up living with a wizard that she has a crush on. And some stuff happens afterward.
Immediately striking is the visual style of the film, which is in the same fantastic and imaginative vein as other films produced by Studio Ghibli. The central theme of love, although often ambiguous, is quite potent, although not as nuanced as the portrayal of maturity and hope found in Spirited Away. Nevertheless, the story, which cannot be described without throwing spoilers everywhere is wonderful and whimsical, but maintains all the coherence necessary for a western audience to understand it.
And, there's precious little more that I can say about this film, other than that it's great and I highly recommend it. It's a beautiful little film about love. Also, the professional American voice talent recruited for this film are far competent for their tasks and Billy Crystal in particular is surprisingly suited for the voice of the fire demon, Calcifur. Great voice ensembles like these put the amateurs that voice dubbed anime television programs to great shame (the 6 people that do all the voices, that is).
I love it. 9/10.