I don’t feel good about not liking a Hayao Miyazaki
movie. For thirty years, the man has
directed some of the greatest animated films of all time, and has
single-handedly made anime a world-recognized artform; even the most lay of
filmgoers and ignorant of Japanese animation know his name. And I really wanted to be able to appreciate
his final feature film as a capstone to his career, a culmination of what made him such
a great entertainer. Unfortunately, The Wind Rises is a problematic film,
both thematically and structurally, and while it retains the superb quality of
animation that we have come to expect from Studio Ghibli, it doesn’t retain the
same charm we have come to associate with the brand.
The film follows the exploits of Japanese plane designer
Jiro Horikoshi in the early 20th century. He sees a beauty in achieving flight that he
recognizes he will never realize due to his bad eyesight, so he devotes his
life to constructing the best planes imaginable. Unlike most Miyazaki films, The Wind Rises takes place entirely in
the real world, with fanciful elements restricted to Jiro’s dream adventures
with Caproni, an engineer whom he idolizes.
One would think that this would make the film less beautiful when compared
to the sprawling fantasy landscapes of Princess
Mononoke or Nausicaa, and while
definitely less showy, the animation is superb as ever. Studio Ghibli really knows how to animate
fluid movement; watching planes glide through the air, failed designs tearing
themselves apart in mid-flight, or even the simple human actions of walking
down a street or writing a note is marvelous.
It really makes you appreciate the studio as masters of their craft, to
have an ability to take something that could easily have just been mundanely
filmed and make it look gorgeous through animation.
However, the film tends to neatly sidestep an issue that I
feel it is unfair for it to ignore. Jiro
Horikoshi’s planes were the ones used to make Japanese bomber planes in World War
II. The film acknowledges the coming war
and quietly shoves any blame the Japanese may incur for its involvement under
the rug. The Germans are an easy enough
target to blame the entirety of the war’s atrocities on, and Jiro is simply an
innocent artist who wants to make the beauty of planes. In one dream sequence, Caproni asks Jiro if
he would rather live in a world with or without pyramids, claiming that it is
worthwhile to live in a world with great art, even if it comes at the expense
of others’ lives and suffering. I’m
sorry, but I don’t buy it. I recognize
that this is a symptom of Japan’s collective denial of their own troubling
history, but it does not translate well to an audience that can clearly
recognize the unstated ramifications of the film’s lionized hero.
Troubling historical disregard aside, the film itself
stumbles through its second half, relying heavily on a love story between Jiro
and a one-dimensional love interest to string it along. It’s very strange to see Miyazaki, a director
noted for his films’ strong female characters, reduce the female lead to a
symbol of artistic purity for his male protagonist to pine over and
enshrine. It makes the feminist in me
cringe, and it brings Jiro’s character arc to a stuttering crawl, extending the
film by an unnecessary extra half hour through sheer romantic necessity.
Like I said before, I don’t like not liking this movie. Hayao Miyazaki directed some of my favorite
movies growing up, and was a gateway for my appreciation of anime during my
teenage years. Unfortunately, Miyazaki’s
swan song just isn’t up to the lofty standards he’s held himself to in the
past, and its faults would make it problematic regardless of which animation
studio produced it.
What’s your favorite Miyazaki classic? Mine’s Spirited
Away. Let me know in the comments
below.
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