Anime Ghibli's Frankenstein Monster
As an animator and a fan of (most of) Ghibli's films, I didn't really know what to expect going into it. I knew the story was set before and during the events of the second world war and focused on Jiro Horikoshi, Japanese aircraft designer, but other than that my expectations going in were fairly open minded to this unusually grounded and more real-world based story. It's a shame that I didn't enjoy the film very much.
Firstly, I saw the english-dubbed version, and while I am in no way an anime-snob who must listen to the film in it's native tongue, I typically find dubbed animes to be be disjointed and awkward. Sentences don't seem to flow as the actors seem to rush through most of their lines, often not sounding like they're really understanding what they're saying, while in Japanese if they are still acting the same as their english counterparts I at least can't tell.
The story was very wishy-washy, moving from one place to another, many subplots starting then going nowhere, and only a few main characters that do anything (Besides Jiro, his girlfriend, his sister, and his angry boss I can't remember anyone else). We deal with Jiro's work; trying to design the best plane he can, going through prototype after prototype. We've also got his girlfriend who he wants to marry, we keep cutting away to back-flashes and them visiting one another. We also have the threat of the Nazi party, which unfortunately get so little screentime or attention. Some of the most interesting moments of the film for me was Jiro attracting the attention of the Nazis and having to go into hiding as they search for him, but then they are never seen again. Wasted potential if you ask me. Same thing happens later, when Jiro talks with a quirky German man in a holiday resort. Besides looking like Hergé, the German warns Jiro of the growing power of the Nazis and caught my intrigue once again, but alas the Nazis and the war in general is swept under the rug to watch Jiro's crying sister, Jiro getting married and many bizarre dream sequences, some of which I wasn't sure were actually happening or not.
The whole film feels very unfocused, had it just followed one or two of it's ideas or been a fully animated documentary it would have worked much better, instead it feels like a Frankenstein Monster: lots of disjointed bits sewn together that imitates a film.
Anime Heartful.
The wind rises is a film that will probably mildly polarise people between whether "it's good, but not as good as previous miyazaki films" or "it's just as good as the previous ones".
As someone who considers themselves a Ghibli fan and was (gasp!) not a fan of My Neighbour Totoro and couldn't get into it, I find this film great, touching and heartful. I am not sure how historically accurate the film is, but as a life story I found it immersive and moving, with a good sense of the passage of time. I felt like I was shown something important in this story of one man's life, not sure what it is but it was there.
The animation is obviously going to be beautiful so I won't waste any more words on it. You KNOW Ghibli.
I was expecting to like this film less than I did, because I tend to like Ghibli's fantasy works more than their non-fantasy works, and because I'm not a fan of planes. But this movie accomplished the impossible feat of making me give a crap about planes and what goes into them, while also providing one of the best romantic subplots I've seen in a Ghibli film, and it was genuinely emotional.
Not my favourite Ghibli film. (Laputa takes that crown), but definitely a good way for old Hayao to go out.
Anime A Beautiful Swan Song for Hayao
The Wind Rises is a beautiful testament to all of Hayao Miyazaki’s finest storytelling devices: slow and steady pacing, beautifully detailed animation, contemplative and soothing atmosphere, and heartwarming moments found in life’s simplicities. Describing the movie is kind of hard because in truth, there’s no real focus. There’s no villain, no problem that needs the entire movie to solve, or really any one genre focus. It just explores ten years in the life of an upcoming aeronautical designer who is trying to make beautiful planes around the time of World War II when the Japanese are demanding fighter planes. The huge selling point really is the atmosphere as the entire film is like a dreamlike nature hike; Jiro, the protagonist, encounters something, dwells on it or solves the problem, and then the movie moves on. It’s not even bound by a strict story structure, like there’s an old German guy that sits by Jiro in a restaurant, says some cryptic stuff, hangs around for a few more scenes, and then just leaves the country, only to be mentioned once afterwards. He’s not even in a third of the movie. Normally, this stuff would drag down other movies, but that doesn’t even matter here because the movie is so beautiful in everything it does. The only downsides are that the pacing can be a bit too slow at times and Joseph Gordon-Levitt sounded really flat as Jiro, like his voice wasn’t expressive enough for voice acting. The entire film leaves the audience with a really heartwarming feeling, even though the ending has a melancholic and tragic undertone (which I don’t think is a spoiler because we should all know by now how the Japanese fared in World War II). If you have to compare it to Miyazaki’s other works, this is more akin to the slice-of-life style of My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service rather than the adventure style of Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. As this is the final film of Miyazaki’s career, I can say that the note he ended on was as high as one of Jiro’s planes.
Anime An Imperfect Beauty
Let me start by saying that I do like this movie. It's touching, it's charming, the music is moving, and the animation is beautiful. It manages to make you care about this young man who many people had probably not heard of before seeing this film, (myself included,) and wonderfully got across the love of planes that both Horikoshi and Miyazaki himself felt. All of the characters are likeable; even the mysterious German man who we knew hardly anything about! But if there was one problem I had with the movie, it would be the romantic interest and her associated subplot. She is still a likeable character, but it feels that that likeability is all there is to her. The whole 'dying lover' angle feels a bit sappy and forced, and perhaps a tad manipulative. We already liked and cared about Horikoshi; we didn't need a tragic love-story thrown in. But, seeing as this is supposed to be based off of a true story, one would expect the story of Horikoshi's lover to be true as well, and if that were the case, then that would be forgiven.
But as it turns out, the romantic subplot really was thrown in. I did a bit of research after seeing the film, and it turns that Horikoshi A) had an older brother instead of a younger sister, and B)his wife did not have tuberculosis, and the two actually had children. Basically, Miyazaki altered true events in an attempt to make us feel sad for Horikoshi. But we didn't need that. I actually feel the movie would have been better off if there was less focus on the (fictional,) romantic subplot, and more emphasis on the warplanes Horikoshi built, and of their impact on the war.
But hey, the overall point of the film isn't about the romantic subplot anyway. It's still about this young man and his passion for making good airplanes; of how we should all have something to drive towards as this young man did. But it also shows us that perhaps we should consider the consequences of our actions. Horikoshi just wanted to make good planes, but those same planes were responsible for so many deaths, which Horikoshi does feel responsible for in the end. But too little, too late. I feel the film would actually have been stronger if it focused more on that point, but as it is, it's still a good movie. Not perfect, but a wonderful beauty nonetheless.