The Wind Rises (2013)

The Wind Rises (2013)

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

7.9

Movie

Japan
French, German, Italian
Animation, Drama, Family, History
2013
HAYAO MIYAZAKI
Hayao Miyazaki, Hideaki Anno, Hidetoshi Nishijima
126 min

What it's about

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.

The 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.

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