The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki 2013): USA

Reviewed by Jim Saell.Viewed at AFI Filmfest 2013

The wind rises Is the perfect name for this exiting but still touching movie.
This movie takes us back to around 1920, when a plane was something that few had thought of.
Jiro Hirikoshi is a very smart and talented Japanese guy with one single dream in his mind, to become the worlds best engineer, so he can fly with the wind when it rises.
But one day everything suddenly changes. He is on a old train  when a girl named Kayo suddenly catches  his hat, that had just been blown away by the wind, out of nowhere.
And that was when he sees her and he gets more then one dream in his mind.
The ground beneath the train Jiro is on starts to move, shake and just fall apart, the whole town where he was raised turns into ruins, but Jiro has other planes then dying in mind that day.
He travels to Germany where he after a while gets a mission, to create a plane for the Japanese Army that no one else had done before.
Hayao Miyazaki is the the director of this movie witch makes it even more interesting by just see his name on the screen, for not just another of his movies but also the last movie of his career.
Prince of the Sun in 1968 along with Spirit away in 2003 is two of his best movies so far in my opinion.
And after watching The wind rises I automatically started to think about Spirit away, even though I knew it was the same director.You can tell by the similar  things in all three movies, for example it is “shot” in the same way a actually real movie would, with all different kind of shots, wideshot, dollyshot etc.
The colors and how everything is created in this movie, together with all the weird but positively emotional sound effects and soundtrack is amazing (the theme song of The wind rises “Hikoukigumo” is just perfect for this movie as well)
, And that together with a great plot that’s based on a real story during the world war 2 is really outstanding. I would recommend this movie to adults way more than kids, because this movie is so much deeper.Spirit away really blew my mind but this movie was at least at the same level, Hayao really ended his career on top.