HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE (Hayao Miyazaki, 2004) ***

Rating: 7/10 (18 March 2006)

Prior to this, I had only watched two of Miyazaki's celebrated animated features - PRINCESS MONONOKE (1997) and SPIRITED AWAY (2001), though when I was in Hollywood recently I missed out on TCM's retrospective of his work - and, as with those films, HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE (which, incidentally, I had failed to catch on the big screen when it premiered during the 2004 Venice Film Festival, due to all the shows being sold-out!) is a great showcase of the Japanese master's visionary genius; however, it also features his typical faults - to me, at least - of presenting an over-ambitious (and overly weird) plot line which, due to its excessive length, tends to overstay its welcome and ends up in being an overwhelming (if not necessarily memorable) visual experience! As usual the detail is immaculate and the scale of the whole thing impressive - but what really holds the film together, for me, are the amiable anthropomorphic characters (Turnip the Scarecrow, Calcifer the Fire Demon and Heen the Dog) rather than the 'human' leads, the villains, or even the elements of fantasy so prevalent in this particular film-maker's admittedly unique brand of art.