- Hauru no ugoku shiro- It's a bit complicated but also charming and delightful and sweet and magical. A very strange-looking 'castle' moves around on legs thanks to the magic of Calcifer the Fire, a demon-spirit bound to obey Howl's orders. Howl is a young wizard on the run who wants to be free and not used by any king or by the big witch Saliman for their wars. Sophie is a young, pretty girl who works all day making hats, although she totally lacks self-confidence and thinks herself very plain; one day she's approached by two soldiers and a mysterious blonde man comes to her rescue. The evil Witch of the Wastes puts a curse on her making her very old. She's probably jealous because she wants Howl for herself. Looking like that, Sophie can't stay where she is, so she leaves. She goes out of town and accidentally helps a magical scarecrow with a turnip as a head. Sophie thought it was just a piece of wood, but once she sees it she talks to it and goes away. Turnip follows her bringing her a cane to help her walk, and such. When she asks for a home and a warm fire she meets Howl's castle, Calcifer and little Mark, a child that somehow lives alone in there in a sort of secretary-capacity, taking messages for Howl. Having no other home she stays there, cleaning the place up. When Howl finds her inside his home, he appears to be barely surprised and no troubled at all. She looks very old, so she doesn't tell him they've met before. Howl is a strange character; he acts like a young lord or an enthusiastic kid, he goes out transforming himself into a monster-bird-man to fight the witch's slaves constantly looking for him; he tells Sophie he is a coward running away from both the war and Saliman and asks her to go in his place but then he goes too to protect her, saying he wouldn't have had the courage to go alone before but now there's her and he wants to protect her. For someone saying to be a coward he fights many tough battles, and yet he loses it after his hair lost their blonde shine. Sophie cleaned the bathroom, maybe moving his products/potions/whatever so now his hair appears to be red, slowly changing to black. Basically the magic that made his hair blonde is gone: he freaks out, he says without beauty there is no reason to live, he starts melting all over the place, in a serious depression. He seems bipolar to me frankly, with his extreme ups and downs, but I admit I envy him his extreme ups. Anyway, Sophie helps him, she puts him in a hot bathtub and then to bed, and talks to him. :-)
During all this time Sophie keeps changing her appearance, looking more or less older, sometimes even her young self. She's young when she sleeps, old when she wakes up, less old when she works around, younger when she worries about Howl or feels herself full of love for him, but very old when she convinces herself to be insignificant and not at all pretty.
When Howl asks her to take his place in responding to the King's summon, she meets there both Saliman and the Witch of the Wastes (whose magic is taken away from her).
Saliman wants to force Howl into fighting her war, so he takes Sophie and runs away. The now-old Witch of the Wastes and Saliman's dog join the group and go living in the castle. Howl shows Sophie his secret-hideout, the place where he went as a child, but when he sees how the war is becoming worse and close he decides to go fighting to protect the city, saying he's finally found someone he wants to protect:her. She's afraid for him and thinks that if she abandons the castle and hide he'll no more have to fight. She takes Calcifer out of the castle and it collapses, without its magic.
Once outside she sees Howl in danger and goes back in , asking Calcifer to take them to him, and she gives Calcifer her long ponytail to become stronger. When the old witch sees Howl's heart in the fire she takes it: she always said she wanted his heart for herself only. It's burning so Sophie throws water on it. The castle, already half of what it once was, breaks in two and Sophie is separated from the others. She cries fearing that she's killed Calcifer with the water and therefore Howl too, but the magic ring he gave her makes her believe he's still alive. Somehow she finds herself in Howl's past, when as a boy he caught in his hands a falling star, talked to it, and ate it. I'm not sure if he got his magic from it or if he already had magic in him, anyway after he ate the star/magical-being/demon Calcifer comes out of his chest: that's the secret bond Calcifer talked about. Sophia shouts to them to wait for her because they'll meet her again in their future, then she finds herself again in the here and now where an exhausted monster-looking-Howl is waiting. He takes her to the others. She convinces the old witch to give her the heart to save him. She says goodbye to Calcifer and puts it back into Howl's chest. Howl wakes up and Calcifer flies away, not dead but finally free.
Without Calcifer's magic they are all in danger but they are helped by the scarecrow, in love with Sophia. She gives him a kiss as a thankyou and his curse is broken. We see he is the prince of the Country they're at war with, who will now go home and stop the war. When her dog shows her this happy ending, Saliman decides to stop the war too.
Calcifer comes back to them, because after such a long time he feels like they're a family now, so the final scene shows again a new moving-castle, much prettier now that a girl is part of the picture, with a lovely image of Sofia and Howl kissing in the wind. Beautiful image.
I don't know if he still has his magic now that Calcifer's not part of him anymore, maybe he does, maybe it simply is not as strong as it was, or maybe he doesn't, I can't be sure.
I believe he does because that's a nicer picture, but there's no proof of it, actually.
I can't remember if he said anything about his relatives or himself having any magic before he met Calcifer, I'll have to watch it again one day, I guess.
The castle moves again because of Calcifer's magic, not his, but if Howl has no magic how are they going to support themselves? :lol They'd need a fix home and job, that's why I like the version in which he still has magic better. Not that it truly matters, the film is beautiful as it is, the ending image is lovely, I love it. It'll be no sacrifice to watch it again :-))
ITA il castello errante di Howl
ENG Howl's moving castle
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