The Wind Rises

Dustin: 4 of 5 stars Nick: 3.5 of 5 stars Average: 3.75 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Dustin: The Wind Rises is purportedly Hayao Miyazaki’s final film (he says he’s for real this time). The film follows Jiro, who dreams of sushi flying. Miyazaki presents a fictionalized account of one Mitsubishi engineer’s drive to create the perfect flying machine, the Zero.

What did you think of Miyazaki’s final effort, Nick?

Nick: The Wind Rises was a more serious film and less fantastic than all of his previous creations. It threw me for quite a loop.

Dustin: This was less fanciful than most his films, but it still had his trademark dreamlike elements, such as the ominous dream that opens the movie with shadow-like figures dangling from aircrafts, and Jiro’s recurring encounters with his Italian hero through his dreams.

I thought this was a solid film, and if Miyazaki does bow out now, he’s left on a strong note.

How do you think this rates compared to the director’s other films?

Nick: Considering that I’ve seen every film in his illustrious career and that I wouldn’t put a single one under 3 ½ stars it’s quite an achievement. The Wind Rises (at first viewing) would rate at the very bottom.

The script is not focused enough. The film at the beginning was all about the beauty of flight, and at some point it lost this altogether. Just because they bring it up again in one more scene at the end doesn’t mean the idea was kept all the way until the end.

Dustin: I thought the script was focused enough. It starts out with Jiro’s origin story. We see him in middle school, then in college, then out in the real world. All these early scenes show his obsession with flight. The passage of time is done gracefully, usually with an allusion about the next stage of his life, followed by showing him heading for that stage with a slight change in his character indicated by a deeper voice or more rigid posture. Then it gets into the heart of the story, which is Jiro attempting to create a state-of-the-art plane for Mitsubishi. There are some subplots about Japan racing toward a futile, all-out war and Jiro falling in love. But I thought the script remained on track.

Nick: I was about to change topic until you mentioned that Jiro falling in love was just a subplot.  When his love interest is added it immediately becomes the plot and the story focuses on that more than what the plot was at the beginning. But enough about that.

One thing that will always amaze me is the animation work done by Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.  There is none better, and the creators of Pixar all talk about how Miyazaki and his studio inspired them to craft their own animations.

Dustin: It’s interesting how the inspiration has come full-circle. I saw some Disney influences in this film, as well as other Miyazaki films. The way the “camera” seems to move in the film, even though there is no real camera. I think Disney invented that technique with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Now, Disney/Pixar films pay homage to Miyazaki. In Toy Story 3 you can see a plush Totoro in one scene.

Nick: The way the world seems to breathe in Miyazaki’s films--clouds moving, grass wavering and wind blowing. Every little detail is so focused upon when concerning the animation.

Dustin: That description could be about Disney or Miyazaki.

Nick: Disagreed. Not at all Disney animated films are like that. At some point money was more the focus for their animations and that led to faster productions and less detail. I’m definitely not saying all. I watched 101 Dalmatians the other day and was geeking out over the animation in that film.

Dustin: I was talking about Disney the person, not Disney the corporation (although, you can make an argument corporations are people too). Walt Disney was a visionary, who revolutionized animation. All animators today owe something to Walt Disney. But I’m definitely not saying all Disney films are great. There are definitely some movies in their catalogue I would describe as “cynical money-grabs.”

Nick: Every animator does owe something to Mr. Disney, but when I say these great things about Studio Ghibli’s animation I mean these things occur for no reason. They are happening behind the characters. There is no point to it besides making the world more real. It takes a lot of time to do all of that. This does not happen in the old Disney films. I’m not decrying Disney for that, but praising Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli for working as hard as they do.

Dustin: I agree. I think that’s why Ghibli movies stand head-and-shoulder above other Japanese anime films. I’m sad to say anime is mostly a genre devoid of innovation. We see the good ones in the U.S. because only the good ones make it here and we don’t see all the slush. Most of the animation is subpar in Japan, with nothing moving in the scene other than the mouth of the one character who’s talking, even then the shape of the mouth doesn’t even match the sounds of the words. Pixar made Toy Story almost 20 years ago, but the Japanese are nowhere near reaching that level of sophistication in animation. Ghibli is really the exception rather than the norm.

Nick: In ALL of Miyazaki’s previous work I have cared very deeply for whomever the main character may be, and while that started to be the case in The Wind Rises it slowly started to vanish. His characterization kept losing momentum as the film moved on. With the focus being more on his wife stricken with tuberculosis.

Dustin: I agree for the most part, which is why I took a star away from this film. This was soaring toward five stars, but the movie seemed to be missing an act. I will give a spoiler by mentioning what’s NOT in the film. After Jiro created the Zero, there really needed to be a scene where American and German engineers surpassed Jiro’s design, and his airplane was used by kamikaze for suicide missions only. In fact, with the title The Wind Rises, I was sort of expecting that. Kamikaze literally means, “Divine Wind,” so I figured the wind in the title (Japanese title Kaze tachinu) was referring to the “kaze” in kamikaze. I needed to see the effect of Japanese pilots crashing Jiro’s planes into American aircraft carriers on him for the movie to have its full effect. Instead, the movie jumps from perfecting the Zero to the end of the war, and we’re deprived of that scene.

Nick: Actually at the end Jiro has one of his dreams where he’s talking to his idol and looking up in the sky at thousands of planes and says, “None of them returned.” I took that as kind of his sadness for the act of what his planes were used for. For all the drama in the film Jiro seemed to lack visible emotion. His feelings were mostly muted.

Dustin: I thought that scene was sort of a wimpy version of what I expected. How did he react the first time he learned his plane was used for a suicide mission? We get a scene here reminiscent of the scene in The Best Years of Our Lives where he walks through a field of broken down planes and remembers his (and the planes’) glory days. Some time has passed and he’s distant from the act. I think for the full effect, we needed to see his initial reaction to his planes being used as manned missiles. Instead, he seems to shrug it off and say something like, “Flying is still a beautiful dream.”

Nick: For sure, thats what I meant by his feelings are often muted. We don’t get to see his reaction to his wife dying nor his first feelings of what his planes were used for. While there are many emotions and drama going on around Jiro, the audience is never treated to a scene of Jiro breaking down.

Dustin: In conclusion, The Wind Rises is a fitting swan song for Miyazaki. It’s not really a family film (I can’t imagine my daughter would sit through it), but adults and Miyazaki’s fans will appreciate it.