For this week’s blog I decided to write about Howl, from the film Howl’s Moving Castle. If you haven’t seen it yet, I definitely recommend watching it. Despite its genre of fantasy, there is a big anti-war sentiment in the film. It touches on the ugly, harmful consequences of war. However, the film more so focuses on the journey of finding oneself. Even though Howl shares the film’s spotlight with Sophie, a resilient young woman, I was more inclined to write about him because of the ways his character connects to some of the Unit 1 texts, such as Oscar Wilde’s, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Famous.”
When Howl is first introduced in the film he’s described as a heartless, handsome young wizard. Word is that Howl is the thief of beautiful women’s hearts. However, as the story progresses, we learn that Howl does not steal the heart’s of beautiful women’s hearts. We also learn that even though Howl is very handsome, he is quite insecure about his appearance. In an instance were Sophie accidentally messes with his charms, resulting in him dyeing his hair black instead of blonde, Howl suggests that life isn’t worth living if he can’t be beautiful. This instance parallel’s that of Lord Henry telling Dorian Grey that he has a, “most marvelous youth [beauty], and youth is the one thing worth having” (Wilde 20). As we know, Dorian Grey became obsessed with maintaining his perfect beauty and youth, swapping places with the portrait painted for him by Basil Hallward, so that it was the painting that aged and lost its beauty, not his physical self.
Even though Howl literally lacks a physical heart, his demeanor isn’t heartless at all. He is caring and benevolent. He hates the violence brought upon by the war, and sacrifices himself everyday by going out and attempting to halt the attack of enemy aircraft on both sides of the war. Often, he comes home bruised and tired. The concept of the public self vs the private self in Basquiat’s, “Famous,” came to my mind when I thought of how different Howl is from what people perceive him as. I saw the public identity of Howl on the head of the left panel, and his private self on the head of the right panel. It makes sense, in a way, because the head on the right panel is described as bruised and exhausted, which is how we see Howl in private throughout the movie, in contrast to his flamboyant, handsome self that is seen by the public.