The Wind Rises

The film is visually sumptuous, morally ambiguous, dramatic and dreamlike, with a narrative as engrossing as any live-action movie of 2013. It’s easy to follow yet hard to shake.

As gorgeously animated as any of his previous movies, Wind has Miyazaki trading in his more fantastical impulses for contemplative, old-fashioned drama and period detail.

If The Wind Rises falls a bit short in regard to historical drama, however, it’s still a Miyazaki movie, meaning he casts the same magically beautiful spell.

While Miyazaki’s two-hour-long, historical-melodrama swansong is destined to be his most divisive film yet, it is also his most adult and interesting, and never less than visually breathtaking throughout.

There are visual flights of fancy here as glorious as anything Miyazaki’s studio has created, but the story is rooted in a country trudging towards its own destruction.

Jiro is a thoughtful engineer and a romantic, not a soldier. And The Wind Rises conveys the visual poetry of its titular reference.

A gorgeous yet ultimately frustrating tribute to the Japanese airplane designer Jiro Horikoshi.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Une idée originale et très intéressante que de raconter la vie de ce concepteur d’avions chez Mitsubishi pendant l’entre-deux guerres, la tête pleine de rêves et d’étoiles, et dont le dernier-né -le superbe Zéro- entrera dans l’Histoire avec un grand H… Le film pose adroitement le paradoxe de l’ingénieur dont les créations sont uilisées à des fins très éloignées de ses propres aspirations mais si ce qu’il aime, c’est concevoir de beaux zingues, alors il n’y a certainement pas de mal à cela… Et s’il permet au Japon de **** son **** technologique sur les autres nations les plus avancées au monde, alors il fera la fierté de son pays tout entier… C’est ici un point de vue sans doute des plus pragmatiques mais le film le défend avec un talent certain. Il nous parle également de la vie personnelle et affective de l’ingénieur avec une guimauve de mauvais aloi tout aussi certaine et d’une façon générale, ‘Le Vent Se Lève’ souffre de graves lenteurs qui font soupirer d’ennui (en effet, l’ennui asphyxie les neurones d’où un besoin accru d’oxygène). La musique gnangnan n’arrange pas les choses et la fin me semble assez abrupte. Sans parler de l’animation assez… désagréable (à quand l’image de synthèse ? toujours cette vieille 2D en 2014 ?). Nonobstant ces écueils, le film vaut le coup d’oeil pour l’intérêt de son propos et son effort louable de réflexion.

I dunno... this was great to look at.... and since I like engineering and planes and history, it was okay... but after awhile, it just seems to be lacking enough story to justify all the sidetrips and lingering odd scenes. Kind of boring in the long run.... tho surely masterful in its animation style.

Easily my least favourite Ghibli movie, The Wind Rises doesn't seem to have a real plot and instead just shows fragments of one rather boring man's life. I know that many of Ghibli's films have slow plots with other movies like Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and The Tale of Princess Kaguya (two other films with rather slow plots) being amongst my favourite Ghibli films, but for me a story needs to at least have some kind of foundation which can then support the slower pace. The Wind Rises doesn't have this in my opinion.

If you are wanting to see something like Spirited Away, etc. this movie is not in this style. I found it to be incredibly slow and boring. Not only that I am very offended a the "morality"/philosophy of the film. False history trying to make Japan the "victim" of WW2, etc. I know critics are just fanboys in love with the director since Spirited Away, etc. but this is definitely a "critics" movie and not one for the rest of us. I give it three stars just for the artwork, but that's it.