The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki, 2013): Japan

Reviewed by Yuichi K. Viewed at TCL Chinese 6, AFI Fest 2013

How many expressions do you know about “winds?” People think winds are permanent, and have given a lot of meanings for a long time. “The Wind Rises” (Directed by Hayao Miyazaki) is very fascinated film that indicates these winds.

      Jiro was a dreamer of the airplane. He dreamed flying in the sky with his airplane since his childhood. In his University, Jiro majored aeronautical engineering, and longed for Caproni, an designer of airplanes in Italy. One day, when Jiro was on a train from his hometown, the huge earthquake hit in Tokyo. He and Naoko, a girl whom Jiro encountered in the train, helped her family and evacuated to the shine upon the hill, downtown in Tokyo. The earthquake completely corresponded downtown, and flames grew everywhere. When Jiro went back to his university, the wind changed. The fire came to the university, and everything had become ashes. When he graduated his university, Mitsubishi Engineering, an airplane company, hired him as an engineer of their aircrafts.

      How were the winds moved in this film? In “The Wind Rises,” always winds bring turning points for Jiro. His childhood dreams flying with the winds in the sky turned the motivation indicated his major and occupation in the future. When the earthquake happened, the fire indicated the time change. Also, he encountered his lover Naoko who helped his life in strong winds again. These winds gives objects and shadow moves. The comfortable combinations of winds make the scenes impressive and meaningful. These abstract imaginations are quite different from the recent realistic 3D animations in the world, and particularly, these expressions have been used on Miyazaki’s works.

      During the World War II, many combat planes that designed by Jiro Horikoshi flied, and many military uniforms had lost their lives with them. Jiro’s airplane called “Zero” was small, and effective for the air attacks. Therefore, it was a notable airplane in the World War II. It was mass produced, and used by the Imperial Japanese Navy. How Jiro expected these ironical gaps between his dream of the sky and the use of the war.

      The life of Hayao Miyazaki, the director of this film, is also similar with Jiro’s airplane. His first work was called “Hols: Prince of the Sun” in 1968. Since this work, including his Oscar film “Spirited Away” in 2003, he has been related to nearly 60 of fine and great animation works in Japan. This “The Wind Rises” must be one of his corpora. He might compare his arts with the quality of Jiro’s fine planes as the point of his creations of fine entertainment works. For the voice actors of characters, famous and well-known Japanese performers such as Nideaki Anno, Miori Takimoto, Masahiro Nishimura, and Keiko Takeshita, joined for this project.

      The World War II is one of the sad parts of the history. However, now this story of developing the combat airplane is spoken worldwide. Nearly 70 years has passed from the end of the World War II, finally, the life of the dreamer of Jiro is revealed, and  becomes as a page of the history.