Hayao Miyazaki's Final Flight in "The Wind Rises"

Hayao Miyazaki is often called Japan's Walt Disney, or compared to British animator Nick Park, but these associations are pointless. Miyazaki has a style, ideas, and themes of his own, and he has made Studio Ghibli an international and cultural significant studio. His last film, The Wind Rises, is his most quiet and his most down-to-earth film. It follows the 10 year journey of Jiro Horikoshi, the chief engineer of many of Japan's fighter planes during World War II.

This may seem like an odd final film for someone who has created magical worlds involving bathhouses for spirits and giant wolf gods. It only takes a couple of watches of Miyazaki's other films to understand that he is inspired by high-flying, fast paced action, and The Wind Rises doesn't lack any of it. The flight sequences are kinetic and dramatic, as expected, and they are the real reason you would want to view the film on the big screen. There is great joy seeing Horikoshi's projects soar, and his failures explode with a crackling energy. Many of these action scenes contain sounds effects created by human voices, which is both entertaining (during the Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the ground sounds like it has indigestion,) and distracting (the plane propellers sound like children making plane noises.)

The theme of the film, dedicating your life to your passion and your craft, is most likely to resonate more as a final film to a long legacy. Horikoshi often has trouble with designing the perfect plane that will be used for massive killing, and he notes at time that his creations would be flawless if he didn't have to worry about the weight of the guns. The dream sequences where there is discussion between Horikoshi and Italian designer Giovanni Battista Caproni are significant as they voice this struggle. Also, the characterization of Caproni makes for the most humorous scenes in a rather soft movie.

This plot point is put in the background when Horikoshi begins to romance his soulmate, Naoko, who suffers from tuberculosis. While this story is without a doubt achingly sweet, even for a jaded viewer like me, it does cause a sudden shift in the purpose of the film. At times, I felt like I was watching two different films. I thought it was about planes and passion, but then it became a film about love and death. The two storylines may have been merged together better if the lead character was more charismatic. Horikoshi is such a blank slate that the other characters in the scene control the mood. Horikoshi isn't strong enough to anchor us to these two stories and act as a bridge, but luckily the animation and the bigger, historical picture fastens the viewer into Miyazaki's vision.

One thing I love about the animation is the lack of computer animation, which Miyazaki has never really delved into. CGI is the quickest way to date a film. Just look at the first Toy Story and Toy Story 3. Miyazaki's hand drawn animation makes his entire filmography feel like they came from the same era, which is a trait that most auteur's can never achieve. Miyazaki has traits that all filmmakers hope to possess, and it is noted again in this final film. Like all of his films, this last one is bittersweet, epic, and spellbinding, even when rooted in a historical dramatics.