Fantasy · Animation · Adventure
Japanese (ハウルの動く城)
2004 · Directed by Hayao Miyazaki · 119 min
Sophie, a quiet young hatmaker in a small town, has her life upended by a witch's curse and sets off into the wilderness. There she finds a towering, walking castle, home to the notorious wizard Howl, while a war gathers over the kingdom. It is a fairy tale, drawn by hand, that is gentle in manner and uneasy in mood.
Why it matters in cinema history
A central late work of Studio Ghibli and of hand-drawn feature animation, made when computer animation was taking over Western cinema. It shows how far one authorial vision could go in popular animation.
Watch with intention
Watch it as a film where feeling lives in the drawing: faces, bodies, rooms and weather say more than the plot.
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