Tales of the Golem; or, the Modern Epimetheus

Howl's Moving Castle

We went to see Howl's Moving Castle last week. We didn't check beforehand whether it would be the dubbed or the subtitled version (probably we didn't have much choice, since the movie is on its way out of theaters) but it turned out to be subtitled, which I suspect was the better option anyway.

I thought the movie was good and in places the animation was terrific. Lots of motion on the screen, not at all like the low-rent form of Japanese anime (or as I call it, inanime) in which, say, just the characters' lips move while as much as possible of the scene is static.

There were a couple of points where the logic of the story was hard to follow. At the climactic moment, the protagonist decides that everybody should get out of the castle, including the fire demon who holds the castle together, accepting the fact that this will cause the castle to collapse. A minute later they all run back into the collapsed castle and urge the fire demon to get the castle moving again. Huh? I must have blinked and missed something.

I wonder if Diana Wynne Jones' novel will see increased sales (more even than would normally be caused by a movie) as moviegoers read the book to try to figure out what was going on.

posted by Richard Mason @ Thursday, August 04, 2005