The Wind Rises, the most recent of Miyazaki’s 11 films as writer/director

Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, perhaps best known for his work with Studio Ghibli, has gained popularity around the world for his creative and imaginative animated feature films. While they were originally released in Japanese, all of them have been dubbed into English with prominent voice actors and Hollywood stars. For the next several weeks, I’ll be reviewing the English-dub versions of each of Miyazaki’s 11 films as writer and director.

Last week, I tackled Spirited Away (2001).

This week: The Wind Rises (2013).

Synopsis: Based on a true story, the film is an animated biopic that follows a fictionalized version of the real Jiro Horikoshi (voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as he designs the Zero fighter plane that eventually flies in World War II for Japan. Unable to become a pilot himself thanks to his poor eyesight, Jiro decides the best way to pursue his dream of flying is to design planes. He tries his utmost to prove himself with a successful design; and, as life goes on, personal, professional and political challenges continue to either set him back or inspire him further.

Spoiler-free review: In addition to being the most recent of Miyazaki’s films, The Wind Rises is also his most against-type film as a director. Rather than an energetic, family friendly, adventure film with fantastical/spiritual elements in it, The Wind Rises is slow, thoughtful and ‘adult’ in the best sense and is the only one of his films that’s based on a true story. Given that the film came out only six years ago, it benefits from more advanced animation techniques and cinematography. Thus, out of all of Miyazaki’s films, I believe this one has the most beautiful animation, and it’s worth watching for that reason alone. It also boasts a talented voice cast. However, it’s just that it’s so different from other Miyazaki films that I don’t know whether I was truly prepared for it. So, perhaps if I rewatch it, I’ll change my mind, but for now I’ll say:

Letter grade: B

Full review and critique: (Warning: here be spoilers!)

So, as I hinted at, this is a film that I respect more than I like it. It’s so different from Miyazaki’s other films, which I appreciate, but I was not prepared for how different it is from its 10 predecessors.

I wondered how the film was going to incorporate the more fantastical elements that Miyazaki is known for, given how it’s set in our world, and the way the film gets around that is with dream sequences. Jiro has ongoing dream conversations with Caproni, who designs planes in Italy and is one of Jiro’s professional role models, and I appreciate how it was open-ended as to whether Jiro is only having these conversations with a fictional Caproni in his own imagination, or if Caproni and Jiro are really and truly communicating via a shared dreamworld.

As said above, this film has a strong voice cast, with Gordon-Levitt as Jiro; Emily Blunt as Jiro’s eventual wife Nahoko; John Krasinski as Jiro’s best friend Honjo; and Martin Short, Werner Herzog, William H. Macy, Mandy Patinkin, and Stanley Tucci as supporting characters. And, there’s really no weak link among them. Everyone shines, particularly Gordon-Levitt, whose character has to do most of the film’s emotional heavy-lifting.

I think what keeps me from really liking and enjoying it is the writing.

The film takes you through Jiro’s life, sometimes at random, not really giving you a sense of how long it’s been from the previous scene. For instance, there’s a scene after the earthquake, where it took me a while to realize it had been several years, rather than a few weeks, since the earthquake had happened. It really relies on the audience to be older, more mature and thus, paying close attention to things like that.

There are a lot of scenes where nothing really happens. You feel like you’re looking on various days in Jiro’s life, with his dream of designing planes being the biggest connecting piece. Once Jiro graduates from college and goes to work at Mitsubishi, the film focuses a lot on his professional struggles. This makes sense. However, once Nahoko comes back into his life, it shifts greatly to focus more on his personal issues, with his successes and failures of the Zero fighter plane taking a back seat. I don’t mind that in and of itself, but I think The Wind Rises would’ve been stronger if it had focused more on Jiro and Nahoko’s relationship juxtaposed to his work.

My recommendation would’ve been to have fewer scenes of Jiro as a child and a university student. Maybe show his initial aspirations of wanting to fly but unable to because of his eyesight, his decision to become an airplane designer, and then the scene of him meeting Nahoko as a student. After that, the film should’ve picked up where Nahoko and Jiro reconnect at the resort, and we get to see them fall in love, but Jiro is still trying to succeed at designing his plane. The fact that Nahoko is dying of tuberculosis and Jiro has such limited time with her, but at the same time he also wants to successfully design his plane, makes for a compelling conflict, which this film doesn’t really have.

I guess maybe I was a bit frustrated that so much of the artwork of this movie, which you can see above, shows Jiro and Nahoko together; thus, I thought the film was going to focus more on their relationship. But, after she initially meets Jiro during the earthquake, we don’t see Nahoko again until about two-thirds of the way through the film. Really, his relationship with Nahoko feels like an afterthought compared to how much time is devoted to him designing his planes.

I understand why it was written the way it was, but I think the film would’ve been stronger if we’d focused more on one time period in Jiro’s life (1932 and onward) rather than sporadically showing him at different parts of his childhood, college years and young professional years.

Overall, it’s definitely worth watching for the animation and voice cast alone. It’s definitely not a waste of your time to watch it, but I think it helps to know what you’re getting yourself into, considering how different this is from the rest of Miyazaki’s filmography.

Next week: Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979).