“Would you like to live in a world with or without pyramids?” This is the essential question in The Wind Rises (2013), filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki’s swan song, asking whether you would prefer to live in a world with beautiful things that might bring unforeseen outcomes of hardship, or live in a world where your dreams would remain unrealized, but unblemished by the outside world.
In this case, what would you do if you would just like to build some beautiful planes, but knew that doing so might bring not only technological advancement, but also destruction? A part of the Emory Cinematheque film series, a program showing a series of critically acclaimed Japanese anime films this semester, The Wind Rises is a highly fictionalized biographical film of Japanese engineer and aircraft designer Jiro Horikoshi during the World War II era.
As Emory Cinematheque is a collaboration between Emory College and the department of film and media studies with the focus being Japanese anime, it is not surprising that Hayao Miyazaki’s films are included in the roster.
A great pioneer of anime, Miyazaki is famous not only for his hit films that are high in quality and produce results in the box office, but also for introducing Japanese anime to the rest of the world, especially to the West. Four films from the studio that he co-founded, Studio Ghibli, boast Academy Award nominations, with Spirited Away (2001) having won “Best Animated Feature Film” in 2003.
By collaborating with Disney and releasing English dubs, Miyazaki produced and directed films that are similar to those of Pixar — enjoyable and delightful for both children and adults. Though he has officially “retired” and subsequently come out of retirement before, The Wind Rises was said to be his final directorial work at the time of its release. He will still be involved with Studio Ghibli, and he leaves such a legacy that critics suggest he may be the best animation filmmaker in history, having received an honorary Academy Award, the second Japanese filmmaker to win this award after Akira Kurosawa (Seven Samurai, Rashomon).
The Wind Rises is a spectacular final send-off. Unlike Miyazaki’s former films, which usually delved into supernatural forces of nature and have female protagonists, The Wind Rises focuses on the career of Jiro Horikoshi and his eventual creation of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero aircraft, which was used by the Empire of Japan during World War II — sometimes even for kamikaze attacks.
However, the main focus of the film is not the progress of the war, but the character of Jiro and his passion for flight and building planes. Most of the drama comes from the internal struggle that Jiro has about the creation of his planes. Despite having enthusiasm for planes ever since he read about his childhood hero, Italian aircraft designer, Giovanni Caproni, he wonders whether he is doing the right thing building airplanes that may be used as weapons of war. These struggles are visualized by his conversations with Caproni in his dreams, which are surreal and symbolic.
Nevertheless, the film shows the effects of war on Japan. It is commendable that Miyazaki does not show a clear side to root for, with black and white protagonists and antagonists, but more focus on the grey morality that comes with war. Miyazaki’s pacifistic beliefs especially show in this film, as it is heartbreaking to see Jiro, who only wanted to build beautiful machines, eventually get pulled into a war that he admittedly had no strong interest in.
As a film, it would be predictable and dangerous to be political and portray each side in the war as either heroic or villainous. It wouldn’t be favorable if a film explicitly stated which side of the conflict was morally right. Instead, as the war goes on and the film depicts the devastation of cities and rising poverty, the aftermath suggests that the war becomes purposeless. Due to the technological escalation of war efforts to build better planes simply as a battle of the countries’ egos, the film questions whether the destruction was all for the nothing.
Another focus of the movie is Jiro’s relationship with Naoko Satomi, a girl whom he assists during an earthquake and later encounters again at a hotel. His eventual engagement and marriage to her also plays into the drama when she falls sick from tuberculosis and he struggles to balance between work and tending to his wife. The film’s depiction of their relationship suffers from pacing issues, as they fall in love after what seems to be a couple of months staying at the hotel, a scene that takes only about 15 minutes of screentime. However, the important part of the relationship is that the feeling of love between these two characters is real and sweet.
In terms of animation and technical attributes, Studio Ghibli is just as impressive and on top of its game as ever. The scenery seems to shift back and forth in style, going from computer animated to hand-drawn 2D, with the sky and planes changing depending on the scene. These shifts in animation are mainly used in scenes with Jiro’s dreams and dialogue with Caproni. This artistic style is at its strongest in Jiro’s dreams, which are accompanied by dreamlike aesthetics and backdrops as they show his aspirations for plane-building and his guilt for its repercussions.
The sounds in the movie are especially effective. The score, by Joe Hisaishi, who composed for most of Miyazaki’s films, is light-hearted, then bittersweet, paralleling how Jiro’s carefree, inner world contrasts with the chaos outside.
It is this kind of filmmaking that truly shows how Miyazaki went above and beyond for his final directorial work. Overall, The Wind Rises is a spectacular animated film that manages to be both uplifting and melancholy. It was a proper ending for such a legendary director in animation.
Emory Cinematheque will continue to show feature Japanese anime films such as Ghost in the Shell, Paprika, Princess Mononoke and Summer Wars at White Hall 208, every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. Not only is the series free and open to the public, it is an opportunity to explore other genres and mediums of films that can broaden your perspective of Japanese culture and animation.
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