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Anime director Hayao Miyazaki is one of the most accomplished and humane filmmakers working today; a new film by him is always a cause for celebration. When "Spirited Away" was released in the US in 2004 to public and critical acclaim, it set a new high watermark of style: dazzlingly imaginative, carefully observed, and suffused with a rare generosity of spirit. It is meant not as criticism but with the highest praise when I say that "Howl's Moving Castle" offers more of the same.

Based on a fantasy novel by English writer Diana Wynne Jones, "Howl's Moving Castle" combines all of Miyazaki's favorite elements: a plucky and confident heroine, semi-European settings (including the inescapable Alpine meadows in the summer breeze), odd flying machines performing daring aerial stunts,; mysterious transforming heroes, witches, demons, and spells, plus a menagerie of adorably bizarre sidekicks. As to be expected, the animation is breathtaking: full of otherworldly beauty but also detailed enough to give even the most outrageous inventions weight and realism.

The movie begins when the curse of an evil witch turns Sophie, a lonely hat shop girl, into a 90-year-old woman. Wandering the waste land, she encounters the title-giving, four-legged fortress and its inhabitants: Howl, a dashing wizard with rock-star good looks and a dark secret, his fire demon Calcifer, his young apprentice, and a hopping scarecrow called Turnip Head. Christian Bale, Billy Crystal, Lauren Bacall and Blythe Danner lend their voices for the dubbed American version.

Another staple of Miyazaki's work are the intricate, complicated plots that refuse to tell clear-cut tales. "Princess Mononoke" (1999) stands out as his morally most ambiguous film, in which it turns out that neither side of an apparently clear-cut fight is entirely in the right or wrong. "Howl's Moving Castle" is somewhat more straightforward, but there are several surprising turns and sudden revelations of moral depth. The warmth and kindness Miyazaki brings to all his projects makes easy good-versus-evil distinctions difficult: he is a master at bridging that particular gap with forgiveness and understanding. Miyazaki's consummate and compassionate artistry has a heart big enough to give even the most vicious villain a second chance.