The wind rises (Hayao Miyazaki, 2013): Japan

Reviewed by Emelie Eriksson. Viewed at AFI Filmfest Hollywood 2013.

Japanese film director and co-founder of Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki, has done amazing tales that only could be realized through animation, for example “My Neighbor Totoro”, “Kiki’s Delivery Service” and “Spirited Away”. This film, The wind rises, is his first film that actually tells a real story. Sadly, Miyazaki has decided to retire, so this is his last dance. The success of his film has done that people compared him with American animator Walt Disney, British animator Nick Park and American director Steven Spielberg, which are some big names. 

I’ve never had an intresse for animation films before so I didn’t really know what to expect from this film. I must say that when I left the theater I was pleasantly surprised, it felt realistic and the story was touching.

The film is about Jiro Horikoshi, the man who designed Japanese fighter planes during World War II. It starts with a young Jiro dreaming about his plane flying in the air. He does that a lot, dreaming. In his dreams he always meet Count Caproni, an Italian plane designer. Caproni tells him that he can’t fly a plane with glasses, but that building planes is better than flying them. Jiro wakes up and decides he will build planes. Years later when Jiro is on a train on his way to Tokyo he meets a young girl named Naoko. While they’re on the train, the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 hits which stops tha train and causes chaos. Jiro helps Naoko and her maid to Naoko’s family and then walks away without saying his name.

Jiro gets a job at an airplane manufacturer, assigned to a fighter design team. The project ends in failure and Jiro is sent to Germany to do some technical research. A few years later he is promoted to chief designer for a fighter plane competition sponsored by the Navy which also ends in failure. Jiro decides to escape to a summer resort where he runs into Naoko again and soon after that, they are engaged. Sadly, Naoko is diagnosed with tuberculosis and wont marry him until she recovers. After some months Jiro gets another chief job as a designer at another Navy competition and at the same time Naoko and Jiro gets married, even though she’s not fully recovered. Naoko and Jiro are enjoying their life together but things happen and the end isn’t what I thought it would be. In the last scen we see Jiro and Caproni looking back at his life and summarizing what has been.

The whole movie contains clear, happy, warm colors. The men are well dressed with suit and tie, smoking cigarettes. The girls are wearing dresses, have small noses, big eyes and perfect skin. The beautiful environment and the warmth the film brings covers the fact that there’s a world war and that people are suffering. This is a feel good film and I would recommend it to anyone who’s interested or curious in animated films.