Hey folks, Harry here - Speak of the devil... My fave festival reporter - Elaine has reported for duty. What's her duty? To cover perhaps the most eclectic and fascinating world cinema festival in the world - and to give us intelligent coverage that lays it all out for us. This festival gives off more films that are "off radar" than just about any other we cover here at AICN. If there's an international jewel that nobody has heard of - she'll dig it out and expose it for us all to admire. Here ya go...

34TH ROTTERDAM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Yes, it's that time of year again. The time of year when you're all sick of reading Sundance reports, look forward to reading about the Berlin premiere of a high-profile superhero film and are stuck reading endless Rotterdam reports about films which will never make it to your local Blockbuster, let alone to a cinema near you. Dull, dull, dull.

So I'm going to start this article with a warning. If you're not into subtitled movies, you might as well stop reading my reviews straight away, because for the next ten days, I'm going to focus almost exclusively on films from non-English-speaking countries. Mostly Japanese and Korean films, I think, but if I come across anything else that merits attention (such as last year's amazing Russian entry, "The Return"), I'll let you know. I doubt I'll be reviewing any American films (mostly because the handful I'm going to see were released domestically quite a while ago), so if that's what you're waiting for, you're out of luck. However, if you are an art cinema lover who enjoys a good Asian, European or South American flick once in a while, grab a comfy chair, lean back and let me entertain you. I promise I'll leave my whip at home. I also promise there'll be plenty of semi-colons for those of you who have an Elaine's Semi-Colon Fetish (ESCF) - you know who you are. :-)

Now, traditionally this is the place where I tell you why Rotterdam is such a wonderful festival, and why it should be taken every inch as seriously as Toronto, Sundance and those other perennial AICN favourites. But I'm kind of busy right now, so I'm going to keep it short. In a nutshell: Rotterdam is the greatest arthouse-and-world-cinema festival in the world. Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Toronto and New York may get all the big international premieres, and Sundance may be the earliest showcase for new American indie gems, but Rotterdam gets the weird, absurd, entertaining, baffling or just ethnographically interesting flicks from Indonesia, Mongolia and the Sahara, as well as lots of endlessly cool, amazing and inventive films from Korea and Japan. Amazingly, some of these sell out as quickly as the high-profile American releases. Over 350,000 tickets are sold each year, which makes Rotterdam one of the greatest festivals in the world. The official guest list comprises some 2,500 names. Journalists come from all over the world to attend the fest, and nearly every director is on hand to discuss his/her film. Furthermore, there are countless world and European premieres, although hardly any of those will mean anything to Joe Six-Pack. And I won't go into the amazing atmosphere of the festival, which is quite simply the best of any festival I've attended.

This year's edition is slightly different from the previous six or so in that it is slightly, well, different. For starters, one of the festival directors has left (although by chance, he was the first person I saw when I entered the press centre yesterday morning), leaving his former co-director to revolutionise the festival. And she has. Lots of things have been given a makeover, from the festival poster (no more naked ladies prowling like tigers) and the ticketing procedure (much better than last year, though still far from flawless) to the actual programme. This year, stress is on South-East Asian and Russian cinema, though many other countries are represented nearly as well. This year's Featured Filmmakers are Benoit Jacquot (France) and Evgeny Yufit (Russia). Furthermore, there is a Tomu Uchida retrospective featuring lots of old samurai films which looks simply fascinating, and a large number of short films which I'm sure are fascinating as well, but which I won't be watching. Finally, there's a new programme section called Rotterdämmerung (ten points if you spot the reference), which features lots of wild, out-there films centring on the theme of the apocalypse. Needless to say, Japan is represented well in the latter category, from which I'll be watching (and reviewing) a lot of films.

Sadly, the festival itself is not the only thing that's a bit different from previous years. I myself also feel a tad different, and not necessarily better. To put it mildly, I am exhausted. Usually, I begin to feel, look and act like a zombie by about day 8 of the festival; this year, due to an exceedingly nasty work deadline that coincided with the festival and still has to be met (that scream of agony which just pierced your ears was mine), I feel like a zombie going into the festival. I actually felt my skin crawl with weariness (something which normally doesn't happen to me until film no. 31 or thereabouts) on opening day, which bodes ill for the next nine days. It should be an interesting chance to do some medical research, though, in that I will be well placed to explore the different stages of zombie-ism in the next nine days. If there is a worse state than zombie-like, I will presumably be able to tell you so by the end of next week. Stay tuned.

This year also marks a bit of a departure for me in that I've made a conscious decision not to watch the latest offerings by two of my favourite directors, Lukas Moodysson and Michael Winterbottom. Nothing I've read about "9 Songs" and "A Hole in My Heart" makes me want to see these films, and since I am, as mentioned, hideously busy, I've decided not to waste my time on films I will probably dislike. Deep down, it feels like treachery (what do you mean, you're not going to watch the latest Moodysson?), but really, I'm too tired to care.

Anyway. So much for introductory remarks. On to the festival now.

This year's festival got off to a pretty solid start. Of the four films I saw on day 1, two were very good (Hirokazu Koreeda's "Nobody Knows" and Susanne Bier's "Brothers") and the third staggeringly brilliant (Kim Ki-duk's "Bin-jip"). I will review all three of these films later, after I've had a chance to see Kim's second film in the festival, "The Samaritan Girl". However, I will start with a review of Hayao Miyazaki's follow-up to "Spirited Away", "Howl's Moving Castle". It's actually the closing film of the festival, but seeing as I had an opportunity to watch it before the festival even began, I thought it would be a fitting place to start.

Enjoy. I'll be back with more reviews, news and anecdotes later.

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HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE

(Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki)

When "Howl's Moving Castle" opened in Japan last November, it broke all sorts of box-office records, selling over 1.1 million tickets in just four days. Ten weeks on, it's still tops at the Japanese box office, where it's expected to do even better business than "Spirited Away".

Quite frankly, I find this hard to believe. For while "Howl's Moving Castle" is a worthy film, it is nowhere near as good as "Spirited Away". Nor is it half as good as "The Incredibles", the film it's currently keeping from reaching the coveted number-one spot in Japan.

Loosely based on Diana Wynne Jones' novel of the same name, "Howl's Moving Castle" tells the story of Sophie, a shy young girl who makes a living as a hatter and leads a quiet life without much fun. One day, on a rare outing to town, Sophie meets Howl, a young wizard whose name is spoken with fear and awe by the locals because he is said to devour the hearts of young, beautiful women. Despite his fearful reputation, Howl treats Sophie remarkably gently; one senses right from the start that these characters are going to hit it off well. Then misfortune hits. For reasons which aren't entirely clear, the evil Witch of the Waste, who seems to have it in for Howl, curses Sophie, turning her from a young girl into a rickety old lady. Unable to face her family and colleagues, the elderly Sophie flees into the Waste. There she stumbles upon Howl's moving castle, which turns out to be badly in need of some cleaning. With surprising determination (old age fits her like a glove!), the elderly-looking Sophie (no longer pretty enough to tempt Howl) takes it upon herself to give the castle its long-overdue cleaning. What follows is the story of Sophie's complicated relationship with Howl (a terribly vain young man with special powers), Howl's young apprentice Michael (amusingly called Markl in Japanese) and the fire demon Calcifer, who promises Sophie he'll lift her curse if she frees him from his contract with Howl, although he isn't quite sure how she is supposed to go about this. It is also the story of all these characters' relationships with a couple of witches, for apart from the Witch of the Waste, who must naturally be persuaded to lift Sophie's curse, there is another witch who might just be the evil genius behind the war that is ravaging the country. The big question is: can Sophie regain her youth, find love and happiness and save the country from a devastating war?

There is a lot of good stuff here, and it's mostly to do with the artwork. Miyazaki's designs are, as always, flawless. As usual, there are men with big walrus moustaches and strange, weirdly designed flying machines, but there's more than that. From the gorgeous, Central-European-looking cities to the wide, open landscapes to which Howl takes Sophie when they need a time-out, Miyazaki's land of Ingary is a romantic vision so consummately drawn that you wish it actually existed so that you could visit it. In this world, the eponymous moving castle, which most resembles a deep-sea fish with legs, seems a strangely natural presence, as do the fire demon, the shape-shifting creatures and the magic tricks. Add a brilliant score by Joe Hisaishi (one of the best film composers working today) and you have a film that not only looks wonderful, but sounds it.

Sadly, what seems to be lacking is a good story. Diana Wynne Jones's "Howl's Moving Castle" is a subtle, detailed exploration of adolescence and heartlessness, with well-drawn characters whose motives may be ambiguous, but who are at all times endearing. Miyazaki's adaptation of the story is not nearly that gripping. True, the Witch of the Waste and Calcifer are great characters who make for excellent comic relief, but the main characters, so well drawn in the book, lack depth. Their difficulties seem contrived, and their situations in life and backgrounds are simplified to the point of making no sense. To make matters even worse, their relationships to each other are kept vague, as well. And since you're never quite certain just how the characters are supposed to be related to each other, you don't really care what happens between them. Nor do you particularly care what happens to their country, because as wonderful as it looks, you never get a feeling for it. It's a setting for a love story and some war-mongering, and that's it; it never becomes a character in its own right, like the environments in several other Miyazaki films. Which would be all right if the love story and the war actually made sense, but they don't. Because the love story, for all its wonderful ingredients, lacks a heart, and the war is never explained and ends in the most ridiculous, rushed way . Call it a deus-ex-machina ending if you want; I call it a bad ending.

Tragically, the lack of depth and cohesion isn?t the only problem of the film. A viewer familiar with the rest of Miyazaki's oeuvre will inevitably be struck by the familiarity of it all - the nagging sense that he's seen it all before. So many familiar Miyazaki themes and tricks are reused here that the film almost feels like an exercise in recycling. Occasionally, the familiarity and predictability are endearing, but most of the time they are vaguely annoying. Combined with the relatively weak story, they make for a somewhat disappointing viewing experience. Not a BAD viewing experience, mind you (even a lesser Miyazaki film is leagues better than the average animated film); just not up to the brilliance of, say, "Spirited Away" or "Laputa". But if you lower your expectations somewhat, chances are you'll find it quite worthwhile when the film is finally released in the US in June. It's worth checking out just to marvel at the Witch of the Waste and Calcifer, two of the most entertaining creations in recent animation.

One final thing - be sure to watch the original version with subtitles when it finally comes your way. The Japanese voice acting is excellent (no grating little-girl voices here); I doubt an American dub will do the film justice. Furthermore, an American dub will rob you of the curious Japanese pronunciation of the name Michael ("Markl"), which is one of the film's great charms.

Elaine