The Wind Rises (2013, Japan)
Animation, Event
, trackback
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Starring: Hideaki Anno, Jun Kunimura, Mirai Shida, Miori Takimoto, Hidetoshi Nishijima
Genre: Adventure, Animation
Duration: 126 mins
Hayao Miyazaki is one of the most respected animators in history, with an Oscar for “Spirited Away” and a long list of admirers that includes Pixar’s John Lasseter. In what he says will be his last film, Miyazaki presents a semi-fictionalized memoir about Jiro Horikoshi, the inventor of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero Fighter, one of Japan’s chief weapons used in WWII. As a young boy he dreams of becoming a pilot but grows up to become the aircraft engineer who designed the Zero,. The film is rife with melancholy undertones, and with the awareness of where Jiro’s quest will lead. Miyazaki, for his part, is one of the most prominent Japanese public figures to speak out against the country’s imperialist past. Even if the visual spectacle is what sweeps the audience away, its thematic richness is what cuts deepest and lingers longest.