The Wind Rises

Matt Patches started his review out by saying, “Refracted through the imagination of revered animator Hayao Miyazaki, the dreams of aeronautical engineer Jiro Horikoshi are as wondrous as a serpentine dragon, a parade of wood spirits, or a dancing Totoro.” However, even when Jiro’s mind starts thinking endless possibilities, Miyazaki favors reality. In sight he thinks plane designs that huddle into the laws of physics, and fly across the sky like fantastical characters. However, in the real world, mankind’s foggy morals and violent tendencies trespass on true passion. What is beautiful is easily used for destruction.

For his supposed final film, Miyazaki makes a heartstring-tugging story of creativity and love that wants to find humanity in the scary legacy of World War II. Yes, “The Wind Rises,” released in 2013, is a cartoon, but animation hits your deepest emotions.

From his younger days, Jiro, voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, sees himself making airplanes like his idol, Giovanni Battista Caproni. Even when he sleeps, his mind is making pictures of aircrafts and Caproni, voiced by Stanley Tucci, encouraging him to see his art. He actually does. Jiro becomes a genius in flying, training at the top college in Tokyo and securing a position at one of the Japan’s biggest airplane manufacturers.

However, despite his close coworker Honjô (John Krasinki), his boss, Kurokawa (Martin Short), and the company’s owner, Hattori (Mandy Patinkin), winning his craft, Jiro still lives under the shadow of the military. He designs fighter jets and they fail. He travels to Germany to learn from their top engineers, only to see a war being made on the streets. He knows sadness is there, and yet he’s determined to create the perfect plane. As what is expected of him is on his shoulders, Caproni shows up in his dream: “Do you prefer a world with pyramids, or with no pyramids?”

Miyazaki troubles Jiro’s historically accurate story by giving him a fictionalized love interest. Patches said, “What could easily drown the pensive drama in schmaltz becomes some of the animator's most tender work.” During a much-needed trip to a mountain resort, Jiro meets up with Nahoko, voiced by Emily Blunt, a young girl he rescued so long before during Tokyo’s Great Kanto Earthquake. Seeing her again brings back so many memories for Jiro, a first love that never left him. He’s in love. Patches said, “While the blossoming romance might play a bit abstruse by American tradition, Miyazaki's writing (translated with an English dub team from Disney/Pixar) alleviates any concerns — Jiro and Nahoko share an absolute love.”

Patches noted, “The Wind Rises came under fire by Japanese and American critics for turning a blind eye to the atrocities that Jiro Horikoshi's creations would go on to forge (mainly, his Zero fighter plane, used to lay waste to Pearl Harbor and in several other kamikaze attacks). Other than a nod at the end, the film never confronts World War II directly. But it's always there, haunting Jiro, tightening around his life like an existential noose. In the hands of both Gordon-Levitt and original Japanese voice actor Hideaki Anno (creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion), Jiro is a hushed, contemplative lead who we see squirming in his tight spot. Life throws him no bones, but he always has his head up. It's heartbreaking.”

After admitting his love to Nahoko, the designer learns that she is diagnosed with tuberculosis that will sadly be the end of her after some years. It’s another boundary for Jiro, who can only see beauty in the moment. Patches said, “Like the perfect curvature of a mackerel bone, a natural image that would inspire his death machines, Jiro can only feel the immediate warmth he feels being with Nahoko.” Looking to the future is dangerous, but looking to the future wouldn’t let him live and succeed as an individual. It’s an impossible situation, one that forces Jiro to pamper in his romance and Nahoko and, maybe, take advantage of the ill girl’s countered feelings. What Miyazaki doesn’t say is as necessary as what he does.

Despite he keeps the political and humanist schedules unclear, Miyazaki dives his canvas with visual delight of every type. Patches said, “Jiro's dreams glow with a golden age, Technicolor sheen, while his recreation of the earthquake is as titanic and terrifying as any monster he's unleashed on screen.” Like Jiro, Miyazaki is a craftsman fascinated by detail. The animation in “The Wind Rises” is careful, from scratches in wood boards to Jiro’s subtle movement, Miyazaki showing us his character’s love through worried motion.

Patches said, “Animation may seem unnecessary for a human drama, but The Wind Rises' justifies it with delicacy and chromatic accomplishment.” “The Wind Rises” is beautifully animated so we can watch the wonder be ruled over by darkness.

Patches said, “Deliberately paced and energized by Joe Hisashi's musical mix of Eastern themes and Italian mandolin, The Wind Rises is an ode to the creative spirit, the intoxication of love in all of its forms. The film doesn't take the obvious moralistic steps that could avert backlash — it's pure Miyazaki, a perspective influenced by history and reflective of a 50-year career.” With “The Wind Rises,” Miyazaki chooses a world with pyramids.

For what is supposed to be Miyazaki’s final film to work on for “Studio Ghibli,” he actually went out with a bang. This is another really good movie and I think everyone will love it, especially if you like flight sequences in animated movies. However, Miyazaki is coming back to work on another new movie for “Studio Ghibli,” so we’ll see how that one is, but in the mean time, check this one out.

Look out tomorrow where we look at a different direction the company took in terms of animation in “Studio Ghibli Month.”