I felt like I had Miyazaki's style in a bag. Strong female lead, old women characters who are ugly but see the future, less competant male character who moves the plot along, and ambiguous and upsetting endings were all things I have come to be familiar with over the last several months of watching Miyazaki's filmography. Both Spirited Away last week and Howl's Moving Castle this week have shaken the solid foundation I thought I had built. While I can still see Miyazaki's playful characters, like the coal sprits in Spirited Away or the identity crisis of Sophie in Howl's Moving Castle these films seem remarkably different from his previous work. They seem to signify a new direction with different objectives.
Howl's Moving Castle was based on a book, but what struck me tonight was the incredably happy ending. It seemed like a Disney movie. The war ends, the hero (howl) gets the girl, the demon finds a home there seems to be a reunion of "family values." I thought there would have to be some sacrifice, but in the end even the castle seems to be rebuilt better. While there is a massive amount of destruction overall I felt the film was too assuring. Howl made an interesting Hero for the first hour or so until the audience realized that his childlike charm was not going to carry the movie's overbearing plot. The whole film seemed to hurry from one plot point to the next and got too cramped towards the end. The climax when Howl decides to give up his childlike ways and seperate from his demon seemed to rely too heavily on this unrealistic envisioning of the change from childhood to adulthood. This new protective Howl
