Hayao Miyazaki was born in 1941, into a world
already at war. His first evacuation to a new city was at three years old. When that city was bombed,
when he was four years old, he evacuated again Hayao is famously anti-war for perfectly human,
understandable, reasons, such as the act of war continually uprooted his childhood and killed
those around him. Hayao Miyazaki is a lifelong and devout pacifist. Howl's Moving Castle the film,
makes me feel like I understand him as a person. This film is loosely based on a novel for young
readers of the same name by Diana Wynne Jones. Like any film adaptation, or pretty much
every time I've talked about this in the past, adaptations must stand on their own apart from the
book on which they were based. This is a personal film for Hayao. Now, I'm gonna talk about nihilism
in a whimsical accidental way a lot in this piece. I don't think what I'm saying would have made
a lot of sense without 2020 doing the best damn illustration of a term I'm heretofore making up,
situational nihilism. We are born into a world that is not the one we want, try as we might the world
does not change, so we make our own world. Nihilism is sometimes not a choice we make, we pile comforts
one on top of the other for self-care for so long we might not even realize how much
we are avoiding the world around us. We don't choose to have no beliefs, they are taken
from us. We didn't choose this the world did this to us. In other words here comes another breezy
Movies with Mikey banger. Howl in this movie is a fancy dude, but he's also an utter train wreck.
A story of two kingdoms that rely on Howl so much that both sides of that war draft him into
their side of it. "His majesty requires that every witch and wizard aid our homeland." "I bear
an invitation from his majesty the king, please inform Mr. Pendragon that all witches and wizards
are required to report for duty at the palace." "They're the same picture." Or a thing he
vehemently doesn't want and before you know it you're a psychotic bird monster, wait hang on is
that, nope, yep, right there, that's, it says psychotic bird monster, okay. Before this film, when Hayao was
nominated for an Academy Award for Spirited Away in 2003, he declined to come to the United States
and participate in an American award show while that country was simultaneously invading another
country. Kind of a baller move in hindsight. A move that, gotta check my notes here, yep, did not
end the Iraq war. all of his films are personal, but this one feels especially so. Feelings and emotions
that have been bubbling up for his entire life, a film where one of the most delightful and
relatable characters is a literal heart of fire. All of this as if to say: good morning, we are
all burning away slowly, and everything is fine. 2004's Howl's Moving Castle did quite
well at the box office if you consider every country except for America, where it did quite poorly. It opened against Batman Begins
which is unfortunate because I'm pretty sure Christian Bale was workshopping his batman
character in the english dub of this movie. "Howl! "I'm sorry Sophie, I should have gotten here
sooner." I definitely am not starting a fight, but sometimes dubs have other experiences nested
within already brilliant things. But did you know: Pete Doctor got the job to supervise and direct
the english language versions because of how indispensable he'd been at Pixar since practically
it's beginning. The proto batman alone. "You, you can't even break your own spell." And then on
June 17th it opened up 12 places behind Batman, but you know 202 screens versus almost 4 thousand.
Film math isn't real. In a lot of ways Howl's Moving Castle is movie about trusting whatever obtuse
family unit you've constructed out of the people that are thrust into your life, and consequently
breaking free of your own self-destructive nihilism. To put it into as simple words as I can,
fixing your life is going to take more than just you. Especially when you live in a nationalistic
war state where everyone's partying in streets because apparently war is dope! Cannon hats!
Oh subtlety, 2021 is here and subtlety is in a casket being paraded through the streets. Sophie
just wanted to make hats she never asked for this "Sorry looks like you're involved." Sophie, who
inherited her father's hat shop, a character that just wants to do her job, a character who always
inherits other people's messes, which is sort of ignoring the obvious which is that Howl's Moving
Castle is effortlessly one of the most moving and beautifully animated experiences you'll have at
the movies. It pushed envelopes in such subtle ways it's easy not to notice. The moving castle itself
has this almost Terry Gilliam quality to the way it moves around. Rotating all these disparate
layers on top of each other to create the presence of a lumbering mask composed of motorized
band-aids stuck on top of other band-aids, situated atop four mechanical chicken legs. It is less a
living establishment and more of a series of additions Howl just sort of magicked into the world
on top of one another. It is an extremely toxic space for one to live in and all at once it feels
comfortable all the same. I absolutely wouldn't mind living there for a bit with Calcifer the wise
perfect boy flame sprite. At the beginning of the film we are introduced to Sophie a milliner
who inherited the weight of her father's business. The world is suffocating for her, Sophie just makes
hats and largely pushes out the world around her. The movie even frames the nationalistic war state
as persistently invading the space around Sophie. Her co-workers go out for a night on the town
fraternizing with the regime and Sophie wants no part of it. Sophie is trapped in a life she doesn't
love surrounded by a world that is exceedingly dangerous. She controls very little, so she makes
gun hats and tries to put it out of her mind. Anyway, members of the armed forces proceed to
be like, we crimin' tonight, and corner Sophie. Howl, the lonely vampire wizard happens upon
her and helps her escape from the soldiers, but simultaneously introduces her to the beings
following him which are the henchmen for the Witch of the Waste y'all! The most uncomplicated Miyazaki
villain ever, her actions are poorly thought out and abusive as Hell. Sophie takes one walk with
the vampire blood wizard and the witch of the Waste puts an absolutely unforgivable curse upon
her, the witch makes her old. The witch just takes Sophie's entire life away from her and ahead of
her just for looking, and worst of all the witch doesn't even know how to uncurse Sophie, which
karma is going to have something to say about. The Witch of the Waste is in turn cursed
to live her true age though the outcome is essentially the same thing as she cursed Sophie
with, which makes her absolutely delightful even when she has moments of lucidity where she
demonstrably remembers the power she used to wield. It's a complicated emotion for an audience to feel
the villain's journey was from uncomplicated to complicated. Or you could talk about turnip
head a cursed prince, maybe the reason your kingdoms are always at war is because you're throwing
curses around at anyone who looks at you crooked. Turnip head used to be a prominent war boy mixed up
in all of this, now anything he can't communicate in basic pogo maneuvers he can't communicate at
all, and as a scarecrow he's willing to sacrifice himself and his well-being to save his imperfect
family unit. I bet you have a lot of time for introspection as a scarecrow with a root vegetable
for a face. Did I, did, is that? Or Calcifer, a flame who needs burnable material to survive and power the
castle, a literal falling star that Howl saved or cursed depending on your world view. Howl relies
heavily upon him to power and champion his entire castle, it's exhausting, just literally burn
yourself out, forever, for me, thanks, xoxo Howl. P.S. I'm glad I saved you. And Marky who
at best you could describe as Howl's trainee slash unpaid intern, who sure seems to do a
lot around the castle, including poorly faking his own age to cover for Howl. A big incomprehensible
family unit thrust together through circumstance. None of the characters in this story make their
own choices, outcomes are merely thrust upon them. Naturally one accepts their dystopia and turns to
nihilism. If you can't affect change in the world you turn away from the world, at least until
things start getting better. Each of these people is completely helpless and alone demonstrably.
they come together and they're able to move forward. Studio Ghibli films often require a
lot of unpacking to understand the motivations of all characters involved, but here they're
all being crushed under the weight of a world and system they do not control. On some level
all of them have given up, but on another level. Over the years I've used this show to illuminate
struggles in my own life as illustrated by film, it was cathartic to share why certain films affected
me at certain times. Art can be pretty cool like that. Perhaps other people felt the same, Moon being
a film about a dude's body dying while my body was doing exactly the same. I can't even listen to
my voice in that episode anymore because I'm so messed up. I mean this is a sci-fi movie
episode and I tend to knock those out of the park. In the last couple years I've
definitely shied away from getting too personal in an effort to let film stand more
on its own and less about my own experience. I chose Howl because I wanted to comment on
the creeping nihilism we were all beginning to feel. I know everyone knows what this feels like, what
if anything mattered about the soul devouring crucible we all experienced through the bulk of
2020. We rely on the people we never expected to sometimes too much, which brings us back
to Howl's Moving Castle, a film where Howl builds this extravagant castle that never
really stops moving, a castle that does not survive the film. I thought I had a pretty
solid episode written that spoke to the moment we are in and then the winter storms tore through
Texas in late February. Teara and I were forced to evacuate our home after almost two days without
power, we were literally burning scraps of wood we found in the garage to heat food to at least
have something warm to eat, it wasn't the best. Luckily other friends who had some power were
able to put us up, what we didn't know while away from the house was that the pipes in our
attic and walls were bursting and flooding the entire house and basically ruining everything but
the basic structure, I guess. Howl's Moving Castle also does not survive the movie, the irony was not
lost on me, which led me to a simple realization: we are all Sophie. It would be so simple if all we
had to do was make hats, that things weren't waiting in the shadows, unbeknownst to us. Sophie never
did anything wrong. Howl sucked her into his wildly out of control life, a pretty horrible thing
happened to her but that was the situation she was in, people were counting on her. It's a movie where
the characters learn to see outside of themselves and that seems pretty relevant to me right now. We
can't give in to nihilism. Life really never does get easier, maybe you just get better at navigating
it. I wonder how Hayao Miyazaki must feel about it finally unburdening feelings and emotions that
he has felt literally since he was three years old, but perhaps it's easier to say, good morning, we
are all burning away slowly, and everything is fine. This episode is sponsored by, uh, us, I
guess? I guess consider this part an ad. The shirt type that has always been good to
us as a business was the fight less, talk more, say sorry sometimes shirt, that very fun saying
came from the Princess Mononoke episode, which feels either ironic or clairvoyant at this
point in time. We actually had a new design for that shirt printed up and ready to go in early
2021, but obviously we had to vacate our home that made us temporarily delay the launch,
power down our store and the show and of course lug a house full of merchandise and
our entire lives across DFW in a Rav4 because... WHEEE! We are just now back to capable, have
an apartment and a base of operation and it really wouldn't suck to sell
some shirts right now. Thank you all for the support during this frankly strange and
surreal time, it has definitely been all caps A THING, also there's gary pins
I feel like I buried that lead. Hi, hello, it's me again, the, the guy with the
doing the voice in the thing you're watching. Um, hey, check out our patreon, patreon.com/movieswithmikey
that would really help us out in addition to you know buying our shirts or
whatever. So this was a funny episode, um watching it, we, we sort of clued into the the just
distant stares of everyone in this movie and the nihilism sort of inherent to, uh, Howl's Moving
Castle and then we lost our house and then I was like wait a minute I'm dealing with the exact
same, oh beans, um, so that was, that was a thing. We have an apartment now, we have a temporary
workspace, so it's going okay. I mean the nihilism is always there and so to this episode is always
there, uh that's fun. F*** insurance companies. Bye!
