The Wind Rises: Hayao Miyazaki

Perhaps the story of Jiro Horikoshi and his creation of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter can never be divorced from the controversy surrounding its use during World War Two and the use of slave labor to produce them. But I believe that Hayao Miyazaki was fully aware of this when he made The Wind Rises, a stirring, melancholy film that is easily the great master's best film since Spirited Away (2001). The central theme, if one can be picked out, would be the need of the individual to follow their bliss despite the world around them. Whether or not the historical Horikoshi really only wanted to create "beautiful airplanes" is irrelevant. Miyazaki's Horikoshi was a dreamer who lived to see his creation be turned into an instrument of warfare and destruction like Alfred Nobel and Mikhail Kalashnikov. Thinking back on this film, I realize that perhaps it may have been just as much about Miyazaki as it was Horikoshi. Considering how flight plays such a central role in Miyazaki's films and how uneasy his fame as one of the world's greatest animators makes him, it isn't difficult to equate the airplane industry with the animation industry.

9/10