Animation
btsbydreuale magic is in top In a"Steampunk"19thcentury past of magic and mechanical wonders, shy British shop girl Sophie(Voiced by)Lives a timid life of selfpity.Then the handsome, notoriously mysterious wizard howl()Sweeps her off her feet(They quite literally walk on air)And the decadent and jealous witch of the waste()Blows through her like a ghostly wind and leaves with her stolen youth.Bent and creaky(and now Voiced by), Sophie staggers out of the city, where steam engines roll down cobblestone streets and English gentlemen buzz about in air cars lifted by fluttering wings, and off into the wastelands where she stumbles upon Howl's
beats by dre outlet clanking, steam driven castle.These and other wonders(A pogoing scarecrow, a wheezy old palace dog, giant blobule spies that look like giant drops of crude oil squeezed into vaguely humanoid shape)Are designed and executed with the delicate textures of handdrawn animation, a disappearing art in the age of smooth, shiny computeranimated movies.The tale unfolds as war breaks out;Battles turn skies blood red and bomb cities into rubble.The blunt but heartfelt antiwar message is the darkest portion of the film(Which may be too intense for small children).It's also what makes miyazaki so special:He trusts kids to understand and engage these terrifying aspects of the world.Miyazaki never explains the vague war conspiracy to any satisfaction, but it is secondary to the characters who are all, in some way, imprisoned by curses:Of pride, greed, fear.Magic is merely a symptom.It takes mortal compassion and courage to cure these ills, and miyazaki's compassion is matched only by his sense of wonder.The original japanese version, with english subtitles, plays the seattle international film festival for one special showing this evening, on the same day the dubbed version opens in theaters across the country.
