Miyazaki’s Farewell: The Wind Rises
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The
Wind Rises is Studio Ghibli’s latest film that tells the story of Japanese
engineer Jiro Horikoshi and his life, up until his creation of the Mitsubishi
A6M Zero- one of the most well-known fighter planes in World War II. As a young boy, Jiro has always dreamed of
making planes. He gets much of his
inspiration and motivation from Italian engineer Giovanni Battista Caproni,
whom he sees in his dreams throughout his life.
Much of the film by this point shows Jiro’s ventures in college and in
the airplane manufacturing company he works for shortly after. Eventually, he climbs the up the ranks and is
put in charge of creating a fighter plane.
This fails, miserably. After
this, he decides to go to a resort for the summer to help clear his thoughts
and get some spark back. While at this
resort, he meets-or should I say is reintroducedto- Naoko, the daughter of the
resort owner. Now I say reintroduced
because Jiro met Naoko earlier on in the film as a young girl. Anyways, by the end of the summer, he falls
in love with her and proposes to her.
It is here that Naoko tells Jiro that she has tuberculosis and asks to
postpone the wedding until she can get better.
Jiro is very nice and understanding (unlike a lot of guys these
days. T_T) and agrees to wait. Unfortunately, this becomes a problem when
Naoko gets worse. Eventually, the two
wed despite the fact that Jiro is working on a major project-which later
becomes the Zero- and is in hiding from the Japanese authorities and Naoko’s
health continues to deteriorate. Jiro
eventually finishes the project and the Zero completes a successful test
flight, but Naoko leaves. At the end of
the film, Jiro joins Caproni, looking back on the Zero project and its
contribution to World War II.
So…after sitting in a theater for
two hours, what did I think of this movie?
I thought it was absolutely wonderful!
Five out of five stars! Amazing! Go see it! Then again, I think that any Studio Ghibli
Film is pretty good- now that’s just my opinion. However, what’s very interesting about this
film-and also one of the reasons why I love the film-is that it’s very
different from most of Miyazaki’s films. For one, this film has no case of magic or
fantasy in it what so ever- that is, if you discount Jiro’s dream
sequences. Also, the film is very
realistic. This film was loosely based
off of the life of the actual creator
of the Zero- who is still Jiro Horikoshi.
And finally, the plot is really good.
If you are not crying or on the brink of tears or expressing some kind
of shock by the end of this film, something is wrong with you. Now one thing I do have to discount on the
film, though, is that it’s a Studio Ghibli film. Most of these films are pretty good anyway
for several reasons (that will be discussed in a later post).
Now some of you reading this are
probably curious about what I said earlier about this being Miyazaki’s last
film. So to clarify, after The Wind Rises was completed, Hayao
Miyazaki- the creator of Studio Ghibli and of many classic anime films -retired
from animation. Yes, this staple in
anime has officially left the business.
However, despite this, Miyazaki did leave with a bang, that bang being The Wind Rises.
Overall, The Wind Rises is an absolutely wonderful movie that is sure to
move and please the audience and makes for a fitting end to Miyazaki’s
legacy. That’s all I have for this week!
Stay tuned for more from Hanime on Anime!
-Hanime on Anime
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