It's been nearly two decades since Hayao Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle" first wandered across cinema screens, its impossible architecture defying gravity with the same ease with which the film itself defies simple interpretation. Like the castle—part organism, part machine, wholly original—Miyazaki's 2004 creation persists in moving through our cultural landscape, revealing new rooms and passageways with each viewing.

 

Title: Howl's Moving Castle

Country: Japan

Year: 2004

Directed by Hayao Miyazaki

 

Sophie Hatter, a young hatmaker, is transformed into an old woman by the jealous Witch of the Waste after a chance encounter with the wizard Howl. Seeking a cure, Sophie finds Howl's magical moving castle and poses as a cleaning lady. There, she meets Calcifer, a fire demon bound to Howl by a secret contract, and Markl, Howl's young apprentice.

As Sophie lives in the castle, she discovers Howl is fighting against a senseless war between kingdoms by transforming into a bird-like creature—risking losing his humanity with each transformation. Sophie learns that years ago, Howl gave his heart to Calcifer, creating their binding contract.

When the royal sorceress Madame Suliman attempts to force Howl to use his magic for the war, Sophie stands up for him and later helps rescue the now-powerless Witch of the Waste. After the castle is damaged in a bombing raid, Sophie realizes she loves Howl. In a moment of crisis, she discovers that Calcifer holds Howl's heart and returns it to him, breaking both their curses.

With everyone freed from their respective burdens, Sophie and Howl begin their life together as the war ends, having created a new family and home.

 

Review

When Miyazaki was crafting this film, American and British forces were engaged in Iraq. This context cannot be separated from the film's stunning depiction of warfare—enormous battleships darkening skies, elegant bombs descending on civilian homes, displaced people trudging along dusty roads.

"This is the most stupid war I've ever seen," remarks Howl midway through the film. The line cuts through the animation's fantastical elements with documentary precision. There's something refreshingly direct about Miyazaki's approach; rather than constructing elaborate metaphors, he simply shows war as fundamentally absurd—a massive, destructive enterprise without purpose beyond its own perpetuation.

More subtle is his indictment of those who orchestrate conflict from comfortable distance. Madame Suliman, with her reasonable demeanor and articulate speech, represents bureaucracy's peculiar ability to render destruction palatable. When she states that Howl "can't be trusted because his heart isn't in the right place," the irony is deliciously sharp—those orchestrating the war are precisely lacking heart.

Perhaps most revolutionary is the film's quiet insistence on family as chosen rather than given. The castle houses a collection of social refugees: Sophie (displaced by her curse), Howl (running from obligation), Markl (an apprentice without parents), Calcifer (a fallen star), the Witch (stripped of power), and Turnip Head (a cursed prince).

This assemblage doesn't simply tolerate differences but requires them. Each member contributes precisely what others lack, creating something more functional than their previous isolated existences.

What makes this portrayal so compelling is its matter-of-factness. The film presents alternative family-making not as radical political statement but as practical human adaptation. People find each other; they create home. This happens every day.

The castle itself remains the film's most perfect metaphor—a structure seemingly impossible, certainly impractical, yet undeniably alive. Its doors open to different cities, different possibilities; its components appear salvaged from diverse sources; its very movement suggests resistance to fixity.

When destroyed and later rebuilt in even more precarious form, the castle embodies the film's essential philosophy: that stability doesn't require permanence, that adaptation trumps rigidity, that home travels with us through our connections rather than being tied to physical location.

What elevates Miyazaki's work beyond mere entertainment is his ability to locate profound meaning in seemingly small moments. When Sophie announces near the film's conclusion, "It's a good thing I washed your shirts," she isn't making a trivial domestic observation but articulating the film's essential wisdom: that love manifests not in grand gestures but in daily acts of care.

This valorization of the quotidian—cleaning, cooking, mending—alongside the magical exemplifies Miyazaki's quiet revolution. His true radical act isn't creating fantastical worlds but revealing the wonder in ordinary life, the heroism in routine compassion, the magic in human connection.

In Sophie's journey from self-effacement to self-acceptance, in Howl's evolution from fear to vulnerability, in their relationship built on mutual aid rather than rescue, "Howl's Moving Castle" offers something more lasting than escapism. It presents a template for living—adaptable, compassionate, attuned to both beauty and impermanence.

Like all great art, "Howl's Moving Castle" doesn't merely entertain but creates space—a castle of possibilities—where we might reconsider our assumptions about beauty, courage, home, and the shifting architectures of our own hearts.

 

Hayao Miyazaki (1941 - )

Il mio vicino Totoro, 1988 

Porco rosso, 1992 

La città incantata, 2001

Ponyo sulla scogliera, 2008 

Si alza il vento, 2013

Singer, Leigh. "Emperor of Anime". Dazed & Confused, vol. II, 82/2010: 122-125 [accesso con Polimoda account]

Niebel, Jessica, Pete Docter, and Daniel Kothenschulte. 2021. Hayao Miyazaki. Los Angeles, New York: Academy Museum of Motion Pictures ; DelMonico Books, D.A.P. (Catalogue of the exhibition, Los Angeles, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, 30 September 2021 - 5 June 2022)

 

Inspired by “Howl's Moving Castle”

Loewe 2023 capsule collection https://www.loewe.com/eur/it/stories-collection/loewe-howls-moving-castle.html#country-selector-panel

Wilkinson, Philip. 2017. Phantom Architecture. The Fantastical Structures the Word’s Great Architects Really Wanted to Build. London: Simon & Schuster 

 

[Published 05/05/2025]