Howl's Moving Castle
| Anime movie | |
|---|---|
| title | Howl's Moving Castle |
| Original title | ハ ウ ル の 動 く 城 |
| transcription | Hauru no Ugoku Shiro |
 | |
| Country of production |
 Japan
|
| original language | Japanese |
| Publishing year | 2004 |
| Studio | Studio Ghibli |
| length | 119 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 6 JMK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Hayao Miyazaki |
| script | Hayao Miyazaki, Diana Wynne Jones |
| production | Toshio Suzuki |
| music | Joe Hisaishi |
Howl's Moving Castle ( Japanese ハ ウ ル の 動 く 城 , Hauru no Ugoku Shiro , Eng . "Hauros moving castle") is an anime film by Studio Ghibli from 2004, which is based on the children's book Sophie in the Magician 's Castle (original title Howl's Moving Castle ) based by English writer Diana Wynne Jones . The film was directed by Hayao Miyazaki . It tells the story of a young person who is transformed into an old woman and who meets a magician. The book and film also deal in depth with the dangers and fears of war.
action
One day the young hat maker Sophie is saved from two intrusive soldiers by a handsome young man. Since the witch from no man's land has been interested in the savior for a long time, she puts a curse on Sophie out of jealousy, which turns Sophie into a 90-year-old woman.
Sophie escapes the city and makes her way to no man's land. On the way, she helps an overturned scarecrow that follows her gratefully. When Sophie asks her to find her a house, the moving castle of the magician Hauro appears.
In the castle she first meets the fire demon Calcifer, with whom she makes a deal that she will be freed from her curse if she discovers the secret of the contract between Calcifer and Hauro and thus frees Calcifer, who supplies the energy for the castle.
In addition to Hauro, whom Sophie recognizes as the young savior, his student Markl also lives in the house. Sophie hires herself to be the cleaning lady for the two of them and starts working immediately.
The city is threatened by war, heavily damaged warships enter the port, the enemies drop leaflets over the city. From time to time, Hauro transforms into a bird-like being and then fights against flying ships. He transforms into a person again when he comes back and, when he looks into Sophie's bunk, notices that it transforms into young Sophie every night while she sleeps.
Hauro receives an invitation from the king who asks the wizard to support him with his means. Since Hauro admitted that he was very afraid of Madame Suliman, who is the sorceress of the royal family, they decide together that Sophie should audition as mother Hauros with the king. She is supposed to portray Hauro as an unreliable day thief, so that the king abandons his plan. On the way to the castle she meets the witch from no man's land, who was also invited by the king. While the witch is deprived of all magical abilities by a spell from the no man's land in the castle, Sophie is received by Madame Suliman. Hauro was her student, whom she accuses of not having a heart and using his powers only for himself. Sophie vehemently takes the side of Hauros and defends him. When the situation comes to a head, Hauro appears and flees with Sophie. They take Madame Suliman's dog and the witch with them. Hauro leaves the refugees. A ring that Hauro gave Sophie shows them the way to the castle. Back in the castle, Sophie watches the return of Hauros at night, who, still seriously injured in the form of a bird, goes to his room. She follows him and confesses her love to him. But this was just a dream.
The war continues to spread, the city is also attacked and many people are fleeing. Madame Suliman's search for Hauro is finally successful. He fights resolutely against the military units to protect Sophie. Sophie wants to leave the protective place to which Hauro has transferred the castle to save Hauro. When she carries the weakened Calcifer out of the lock, it collapses. In part of the rubble, Sophie asked Calcifer to let the castle wander again in order to get to Hauro. Calcifer finally sets part of the castle in motion. The witch recognizes the heart of Hauros in the newly kindled fire and takes it for herself. When Sophie extinguishes the fire in her hands with water to protect her, the lock breaks apart again, Sophie is separated from the others.
The ring shows her a path in Hauro's childhood. There she sees that Calcifer was caught as a shooting star by Hauro and turned into fire. He also had Hauro's heart now. Knowing this, she asks Hauro in his bird form (when she was back) to fly to Calcifer. She gives Hauro his heart back, Calcifer is freed and flies away, Hauro becomes a human again. But with Calcifer, his powers also disappear. The remains of the castle tip over and threaten to slide into a rock. The scarecrow brakes the lock and saves them all. Sophie happily gives the faithful scarecrow a kiss, who transforms into the king's son of the enemy neighboring country and wants to return to his kingdom to end the war. Madame Suliman, who observed the events through a glass ball, now sees no point in the war. Finally, Calcifer returns to re-energize a new, bigger, friendlier castle. You can see Sophie and Hauro standing together on the new castle and happily kissing each other - they are probably a couple and can finally live out their love in peace.
Origin and production
The book, originally Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones , was written in 1986 and was followed up with Castle in the Air . Carlsen Verlag published it in German in 2005 under the title Sophie in the Magician's Castle . The anime studio Ghibli turned the book into an animated film directed by Hayao Miyazaki , which was finally released in 2004. The plot of the book and the film are very different, especially the ending is described completely differently in the book.
The imaginary cities of Europe in the film are modeled on the city of Colmar , where Miyazaki and his illustrators studied for film. In terms of style, they take the work of Albert Robida , a French caricaturist from the commune era , as a model. As far as industry and war machines go beyond Robida's lifetime at the beginning of the 20th century, Miyazaki has explained: "The film should be science fiction as it was imagined in Robida's time." The destruction of Sophie's romantic hometown by a bombing from the air can be understood as an allusion to the fate of many cities in Europe in the age of the world wars . The soldiers' uniforms are partly similar to the French uniforms of 1914. A poster that appears in the scene with the escape from the witch's servants in the background reads - in German - the slogan "Courage and willpower".
When he started working on the film, the American attack on Baghdad was imminent. Miyazaki, who sees himself as a pacifist, has made this connection himself and also explained that this is one reason why Suliman, unlike in the literary model, is a woman: “When I look at American foreign policy, I can see how a woman Ruler is influenced by a female person. So I had the idea to make Suliman a woman. I don't think George Bush has a chance against the lady in question. ”Apparently Condoleezza Rice is meant . Miyazaki doesn't want to be a political artist, “but neither do I want to be a storyteller who can easily talk about a war that has nothing to do with the modern world. Before the invention of the machine gun, it would have been possible to talk about war in this way. Today it is no longer possible. "
publication
The cinema release of the film was in Japan on November 20, 2004. There it already grossed 1.4 billion yen (about 10.2 million euros) on the opening weekend (November 20/21, 2004) and was later (behind Chihiros Reise ins Zauberland and before Princess Mononoke , both also by Miyazaki) to one of the three most commercially successful Japanese films. It was number 1 in the Japanese box office for nine weeks and then in the top ten for many more weeks.
In Germany and the German-speaking part of Switzerland, the film started as The Changing Castle on August 25, 2005, and in Austria on August 26, 2005. A DVD has been available from the Universum Anime label since February 27, 2006 , and a Blu-ray since May 18, 2012 The German first broadcast on free TV took place on March 24, 2008 on ARD .
synchronization
The synchronization was done by FFS Film- & Fernseh-Synchron GmbH in Munich. Frank Lenart directed the dialogue .
| role | Japanese speaker ( seiyū ) | German speaker |
|---|---|---|
| Hauro | Takuya Kimura | Robert Stadlober |
| Sophie | Chieko Baishō | Sunnyi Melles |
| Markl | Ryūnosuke Kamiki | Kevin Iannotta |
| Calcifer | Tatsuya Gashūin | Gerald Schaale |
| witch | Akihiro Miwa | Barbara Ratthey |
| Madame Suliman | Haruko Kato | Maddalena Kerrh |
| Lettie | Kayako Tsuzuki | Claudia Lössl |
| Hanna | Marina Koehler | |
| king | Akio Ōtsuka | Thomas Rauscher |
| Bettsy | Rio Kanno | Marion Hartmann |
criticism
“An anime set in the industrial age of the 19th century, full of fascinating, exuberant imaginations, which warns of the threat to human civilization from technology and war and which strikes a song of praise to the power of love. In the end, despite all the confidence, a rather skeptical tone prevails. "
“With his film 'The Moving Castle', Hayao Miyazaki once again proves himself to be one of the great storytellers of our day, as a director with a visual and emotional fantasy that is second to none. […] This superficially naive act mixes with poetry and mystery, technology and violence to form a wild patchwork of European cultural history and Asian experience. The result is a fable for children and adults, deeply humanistically, with relish and told with exuberant ideas. […] Miyazaki is universal and yet unmistakably Japanese: In his kaleidoscopic narrative style, in his preference for 'strong' women, in the endeavor to tell a modern myth, and finally in its end, which creates a peaceful harmony of opposites in no way means sugar-sweet reconciliation, which is also sentimental, but more open and much more melancholy than any simple happy ending in western films. "
“In his new work, Hayao Miyazaki combines elements of fairy tales and myths from Eastern and Western cultures with remarkable creativity and exuberant fantasy. The result is a balanced and touching modern fairy tale about tolerance and humanity. Miyazaki's unmistakable handwriting is clearly recognizable: he relates touching poetic moments to the brutal everyday reality of a war. Although the understanding of nature and the world of ghosts and demons are more in line with Japanese traditions, the film appears very European. [...] The fairy tale opens up to children in its basic features through its universal archetypal story, while it also offers adults many starting points and sophisticated entertainment. "
Awards
- Prix Osella at the 61st Venice International Film Festival 2004
- Audience Award at the 37th Sitges International Film Festival ( Spain ) 2004
- Best Japanese Film in the 59th Mainichi Film Competition 2004 of the Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun
- Oscar nomination for best animated feature film 2006
literature
- Andreas Platthaus: The Wars of the Pacifist. Miyazaki Hayao is one of the most important animation filmmakers and his new film "The Moving Castle" is a global success. A home visit. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , August 21, 2005, No. 33, p. 26.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Age rating for Howl's Moving Castle . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ a b Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , August 21, 2005, p. 26.
- ↑ Karl R. Kegler, “Godzilla meets Poelzig. European backdrops, copies and collages in the fantastic film of Japan. ” In: archimaera (issue 2/2009).
- ↑ Howl's Moving Castle. Universum Film GmbH, archived from the original on December 12, 2013 ; accessed on April 13, 2020 .
- ↑ Anime no Tomodachi -Newsletter No. 355, 09-08.
- ↑ German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | Howl's Moving Castle. Retrieved February 19, 2018 .
- ↑ Howl's Moving Castle. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ The great TV feature film film lexicon . Digital library special volume (CD-ROM edition). Directmedia, Berlin 2006. ISBN 3-89853-036-1 . Pp. 13629-13630.
- ↑ THE CHANGING CASTLE . Top video news. Publisher: Children's and Youth Film Center on behalf of the BMFSFJ .
Web links
- Howl's Moving Castle in theInternet Movie Database(English)
- Howl's Moving Castle atRotten Tomatoes(English)
- Preview of the film on the German distributor's website
- Review of the moving castle on KinderundJugendmedien.de