Dir. Hayao Miyazaki · Japan · French, German
An illuminative interpretation of the life of Jiro Horikoshi, a Japanese aviation engineer responsible for many World War II fighter designs, including the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter
2013 Movie Animation, Drama, Family
Our take
In what was originally intended to be his final film, Hayao Miyazaki is at his most lucid with The Wind Rises. Fluid and luminous, it cleanly moves between a grounded, historical reality and an intuitive, imaginative dreamscape. Here Miyazaki reflects on the process of creation and what it means to be an artist, drawing parallels between his own meticulousness as a filmmaker with Horikoshi’s immutable passion for flight and efficient design.
But questions of responsibility and duty arise, as Horikoshi—and by extension, Miyazaki—must reckon with the reality that even things as beautiful as aeroplanes can be destructive, and that even dreams can be violent. This meditative film does not offer any easy answers but it provides solace in its prevailing sentiment: The wind is rising, we must try to live.
Streaming arrival
What it won
Oscars
1 nom
Venice
1 nom
Golden Globes
1 nom
Nat. Board of Review
1 win
NYFCC
1 win
LAFCA
1 nom
The story
A lifelong love of flight inspires Japanese aviation engineer Jiro Horikoshi, whose storied career includes the creation of the A-6M World War II fighter plane.
Elsewhere
"Everything is invested with spirit: levers, flaps, and, of course, the wind."
— David Edelstein
"It's Miyazaki's most atypical cartoon, yet it might be his most personal self-representation, a portrait of the artist as a myopic dreamer."
— Andrew Osmond
The details
Who picked it
Taylor Leigh Harper is a writer from Southern California who covers film and writes across fiction, creative nonfiction, and free verse. She is a contributing writer and curator at A Good Movie to Watch, with work also appearing in Westwind, The Bridge, and Haunted Waters Press.