The Wind Rises: Movie Review

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

"Le vent se lève!... Il faut tenter de vivre!"

"The wind is rising!…We must try to live!"

~ Le Cimetière marin, by Paul Valery 

The Wind Rises is Hayao Miyazaki's swan song, his final film after six decades of work.  Through Miyazaki's career we've seen such films as The Cat Returns, Kiki's Delivery Service, Whisper of the Heart, Howls Moving Castle, Spirited Away, and Ponyo to name a few.

And in The Wind Rises we get a little bit of everything Miyazaki: A historical film about Jiro Horikoshi, fanciful bits through dreams, commentaries about war, and beautiful nature shots carefully hand painted instead of the digital work we now see so often.  True artistry.

There is a benefit in not knowing what The Wind Rises is all about, though this movie experience, especially if you've studied WWII history, can quickly become eerie.

Dr. Jiro Horikoshi has dreamed his whole life of building beautiful airplanes. He wanted to fly airplanes himself as a kid, but his poor eyesight quickly put an end to it. This film actually starts with a dream sequence, which, if you don't know the movie's theme, can quickly add confusion. The animation during the dream sequence is part Spirited Away, part Howls Moving Castle, and part Porco Rosso. Immediately The Wind Rises feels like a Miyazaki fantasy, and it is, but only when Jiro dreams. And it is through his dreams that Jiro receives both guidance and warnings from the Italian plane builder Caproni.

Time passes quickly in The Wind Rises, and this time passage isn't always noticeable. Clues come through character changes and dialogue. Some characters age, while others don't age enough. We see Jiro attend school, meet the girl he is destined to love, the 1923 Kanto Earthquake, the economic crash, an interesting view of Japan pre-WWII . . . and that's when the movie takes it's eerie turn.

As the movie progressed the words “Pearl Harbor! Pearl Harbor! Pearl Harbor!” began echoing through my mind. The planes Jiro created and built were used during WWII, killing thousands. And through the film Jiro hears the warning. “Japan is going to burn,” he says while realizing what they're doing and the evils of Germany in which they're allied. But Jiro's need to create something beautiful propels him forward.

And in a way there's an irony there. Miyazaki, writer and director of The Wind Rises, has made his pacifism known through the years. He changed the book plot to Howls Moving Castle to insert his own pacifist ideologies (I still wish the scene where Howl visits his family in Wales, during our time, made it into the movie! It's hilarious!! Sophie trying to describe in her own words what a video game is. I sidetrack). This movie celebrates the airplanes Japan built during the war, and the modernization this helped bring, old Japan verses new Japan, but then you begin to see why Miyazaki hates war so much. This movie isn't Grave of theFireflies, it's considerably more lighthearted, but you get a different perspective of Japan before, during, and after the war.

The Wind Rises is a beautiful movie. Throughout the film my Mom, sitting to the right of me, said “oh” quite often as scenes changed. In an age of digital animation, it's nice seeing artfully drawn out paintings and backdrops. It's a dieing craft. And there are gorgeous moments as the movie pauses here and there. My brothers didn't like the pacing, but it's typical Japanese storytelling, which I like. The big drawback was the occasional use of human voice sound effects, which I found distracting, especially during the Earthquake scene.

As a note, Miyazaki humanizes Jiro a bit. We see a lot of back story and a lovely simple love story, which is apparently, from what I read, fabricated. The only true bits is the fact that Jiro designed planes that was used during the war.

Overall, The Wind Rises is a labor of love for Miyazaki, and I truly wonder if he'll stay retired. He did want to write a sequel to Ponyo, after all, and that's something I would like to see.

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for some disturbing images and smoking.