The Wind Rises Review

SPOILERS:

Revered by generations of fans, adults and children alike, legendary Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki has returned once more with what was originally announced to be his final film, The Wind Rises (he has since come out of retirement). A box office hit in Japan back in the summer of 2013, the Oscar-nominated animated film finally got a theatrical release in North America in late February, and for those overwhelmed by the frenetic and overly busy animation films in theaters recently, the cure has finally arrived.

After having already covered the harrowing impact of World War II on Japan’s citizens to amazing and unforgettable effect in Grave of the Fireflies, Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises is a return of sorts to that era of Japan’s history, but the approach this time is vastly different. Miyazaki isn’t interested in retreading his footsteps in this new film; The Wind Rises isn’t about the destructiveness of war and doesn’t dwell much on the ugly side of it. Instead, this film takes an aesthetically cerebral approach, an approach that is clearly personal and unique to the mind of a once in a lifetime filmmaker.

The Wind Rises is an autobiographical account of sorts of the life of Jiro Horikoshi, a Japanese engineer who would eventually design the famous Zero fighters of World War II. Resigned from an early age to the fact that his nearsightedness made his dreams of becoming a pilot virtually impossible, Jiro finds inspiration in the aviation magazines he avidly collected as a child and discovers a new calling. In a dream filled with improbable flying machines, Jiro meets Italian plane pioneer Caproni, a man who imparts words of wisdom that will define Jiro’s life: airplanes are beautiful dreams, engineers turn dreams into reality. It is within this dream realm and armed with the sage advice of his fictional Caproni that Jiro confronts his problems head on as he faces the many challenges and obstacles that stand in his way, from the realization that his designs will be used as fighters and bombers to the almost crippling fear of losing the love of his life, Nahoko. 

The Wind Rises is a film grounded in reality, a fact that sets it apart from the majority of the rest of Miyazaki’s work. There are no fantastical worlds, lurid creatures or improbable happenstances to be found here, except in Jiro’s dreams. Things are much more subtle and low-key, almost to a fault. Jiro isn’t a particularly captivating character and there is no real climactic moment or one overarching difficulty that Jiro must contend with, but The Wind Rises isn’t interested in big explosive finales or in manufacturing evil villains to root against; its chief focus is exploring the difficulties of creating something beautiful in a world where, more often than not, those wondrous things are distorted by the very forces that create them. And it is Jiro who goes through life attempting to tap into that force, personified in this film by the ebbs and flows of the majestic power of the wind. We witness its destructive capacities as massive fireballs swallow up the wooden city of Tokyo during the infamous earthquake of 1923, and observe in awe as flames are carried up in intensity and ferocity by a blistering wind, the very wind that leads him to meet Nahoko, and the very wind that eventually takes her away from him. 

When Jiro reaches the crucial point of his career as a plane designer, it is also the time that Nahoko’s illness is at its apex. Nahoko’s contraction of tuberculosis, an affliction of the lungs that affects your ability to breathe, is no coincidence. Here again we find the influence of the wind on Jiro’s life, an influence that takes away just as often as it gives back. At this point, we come to the aspect of this film that is most difficult to reconcile: the love story. It arrives out of nowhere, falls into place very awkwardly, and is the weakest angle of The Wind Rises, but Miyazaki uses it to make an important argument. As powerful as the creative process is, it gets its crucial strength from the love of someone at your side, and Nahoko's sacrifice is the key element that pushes Jiro over the top to design the defining creation of his lifetime, a creation that would be put to tragic and destructive use in World War II.

This is just one of the many indelibly saddening paradoxes of the world that shape Jiro’s life, but those who judge Jiro for his seemingly naive outlook and approach are sorely mistaken. This is a man who sees life for all its insurmountable flaws and unforgiving realities but chooses to soldier on anyway. In one of Jiro’s dreams, Caproni poignantly asks if Jiro would rather live in a world with or without pyramids. It is in Jiro’s discovery of the answer that he finds the inspiration to create wonderful things, to design the contraptions that, by all rights, shouldn’t be up there in the first place. As Caproni states so elegantly, “airplanes are beautiful cursed dreams, waiting for the sky to swallow them up.” Fulfilling the potential that comes from inspiration arrives at a great and sometimes perilous cost, but Jiro is ultimately willing to pay the price. One only has to bring up the countless innovations that the wars of the 20th century brought us or the unforeseen destructive potential of dynamite and the ethical dilemma that consumed its inventor, Alfred Nobel, to find some real life parallels of the film’s subject matter. The film thus reminds us that many of the revolutionary inventions and innovations of the world only came into existences under the auspices of the great war machine that defines human history. Does this ugly truth absolve the creator, and does this stark reality mean that no innovation should be attempted in the first place? Anyone who watches this film will know Miyazaki’s answer.

Verdict: Does The Wind Rises stand up to Miyazaki's best? Not by a long shot, but this mature and elegant biopic is the clear signature of a master at work. What this film lacks in truly compelling narrative it more than makes up for in a beauty of vision that is simply unsurpassed in animation.

B

Trailer:

Movie info:

Runtime: 126 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

English Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Stanley Tucci

Director: Hayao Miyazaki

Screenplay: Hayao Miyazaki