Hayao Miyazaki‘s “THE WIND RISES”
Review by Dennis D. McDonald
If there is anyone left who doubts the ability of traditionally animated films to tell a deeply moving and emotionally rich story, show this film.
Three stories are intertwined: an imaginative boy grows up to be a supremely talented aeronautical engineer. He falls in love and marries. The backdrop: watching Japanese society “catch up” with what some Japanese perceive as more advanced and prosperous western nations.
The movie walks a fine line between the main character’s love of airplanes and its acknowledgement of their use as instruments of war. His love of flight and the design and construction of aircraft is the driving force behind much of the movie’s action. At the same time, his work depends on military contracts and it is impossible while watching this lovely film to ignore early 20th century Japanese militarism and the coming war.
Balancing this ominous background is a deftly and sensitively told love story which contrasts sharply with our hero’s world of machines, rivets, and slide rules. It is a bittersweet love story tinged by both sadness and the rumblings of politics.
The animation in this film is breathtaking. Frequent aerial events are employed by Ghibli artists to display not only the glories of beautiful machines in flight but the spectacle of Japanese landscapes viewed to awesome advantage in all manners of light and weather. The cloud effects in this movie--some beautiful and some ominous and terrifying –– are the most impressive I can recall from any movie.
Spread throughout are scenes of great emotional impact and detail. The depiction of the cataclysmic Kanto Earthquake of 1923 must be seen to be believed both visually and aurally (a good subwoofer helps).
At the other end of the scale, if you are not emotionally engaged by the simple impromptu wedding ceremony you have not lived.
Review copyright © 2020 by Dennis D. McDonald