Standard spoiler alert here.  This post will go into details about the movie “The Wind Rises“.  If you don’t want to know what happens in this movie you better stop reading now.

This is the last movie from world-renowned animator Hayao Miyazaki.  I first discovered Miyazaki in college in 1989 when a friend shared his bootleg copy of “The Castle of Cagliostro“.  Since that time I have marveled at how well he can draw out even the most minute details in nature and highlight them in a media that is too often derided as childish and sloppy.

For those that don’t know, anime is far removed from the Saturday morning cartoons that you and I grew up on.  The subjects and story lines are far more complex and the intention is to make a live action movie without relying on actual live action.

Miyazaki himself stated that since this was going to be the last film that he directed that he wanted to tackle a story line that would include some of his long time interests.    He chose to do a fictionalized biography of Jiro Horikoshi, the chief designer of the famous Japanese A6M Zero fighter.  Miyazaki’s interest in flight may derive in part due to his family’s involvement in producing aircraft parts for the Zero during the war.  He has incorporated many flight related themes into his previous works (Most significantly in Porco Rosso and Castle in the Sky) so it is not a huge surprise that he would tackle this subject.

The story title comes from a French poem by Paul Valery (Le vent se lève ! … Il faut tenter de vivre or The wind is rising… we must try to live).  This can be interpreted in several ways.  It could be taken as life advice to seize life for what it’s worth and live it no matter what the circumstances.  It could also be flight advice.  In the early days of flight pilots would prefer to have some wind to assist their aircraft into the air.  Lastly and less probable the wind may refer to the fact that the Japanese term ‘kamikaze‘ refers to the divine wind and that the Zero was the aircraft mainly associated with this tactic.

The story follows Jiro as a child and his ambitions to design planes.  He reads western flight magazines and becomes obsessed with the Italian aircraft designer Giovanni Caproni, who at the time was the best aircraft designer in the world.  One night he seems to share a dream with Caproni and Caproni encourages Jiro to follow his passion.  The next morning when he wakes he tells his mother that he will design planes.

The movie fast forwards to 1923. Jiro is going off to college.  On the train to Tokyo he meets a young girl and they start to connect when suddenly the whole world seems to ripple.  A massive earthquake has struck the area and  Tokyo is devastated.  Jiro shepherds the girl and her nanny to her home but before she learns his name he runs off to help fight the fires breaking out in the city.

The 1923 earthquake is a defining moment in modern Japanese history.  Something akin to 9-11 in our country.  You can see a distinct difference in attitudes before and after the event.

Tokyo is razed by the ensuing fires and the government begins rebuilding the city along more modern western lines.  It also uses the event to erase the last vestiges of the old traditional forms of government and a new militaristic government begins to exercise more power over the nation and reshape it to their views.

Jiro returns to the girl’s home but finds it has burned to the ground and there is no sign of her.  He returns to the university to continue his studies.  He pores over books from America and Germany and develops an almost instinctive feel for aircraft design that his fellow engineers lack.

He graduates in 1929 and begins to look for a job but the country is wracked by the great depression.  Although he is bursting with good ideas, nobody has the money to implement them.  He eventually lands a job with Mitsubishi but is disappointed to see that while the rest of the world is building planes from metal, that the best Japanese designs are still made from wood and canvas.

Mitsubishi is forced to take on government fighter contracts to survive.  Their first effort is a failure.  This leads the company to send Jiro and some other engineers to Germany to learn from Hugo Junkers about modern aircraft design.  The team is astonished at the advancements in aircraft design and Jiro’s friends despair that they may never catch up but Jiro has faith that they will not only catch up but surpass them.  That night he and a friend take a walk.  They come across a young boy being chased by secret policemen.  They have unknowingly come across the beginnings of the holocaust.  This triggers another dream for Jiro.

He meets Caproni again.  They fly in his last design.  Caproni declares that he is retiring.  His time has passed and now it is Jiro’s time.  But he warns Jiro that greatness comes at a cost.  He may design great planes but inevitably they will be used for war.  Jiro has to decide if he is willing to bear that cost and the responsibility for designing something that will be used to kill people.  Jiro declares that he just wants to create beautiful planes and decides that he is willing to embrace greatness.

He returns home and is made chief designer for a new navy fighter.  He puts in all the lessons he has learned from his trip abroad but the design crashes.  Jiro becomes depressed by the failure.  He takes a month long vacation at a mountain hotel.

While there he runs into the girl from the earthquake.  Her name is Naoko and she has been searching for Jiro since that day.  They soon fall in love.  In the meantime he runs into a German man who is critical of Hitler and his policies and warns that any future war will result in the destruction of Germany and Japan.

The vacation ends and Jiro asks to marry Naoko but she confesses that she is afflicted with tuberculosis and won’t marry him until she feels better.

Now engaged, Jiro returns to work feeling invigorated and with new ideas.  He starts to work again but suddenly has to flee.  The secret police are after him for his contact with the strange German man.

He hides out at his boss’ house and continues work on the plane design until he receives a telegram from Naoko’s father that she has had a lung infection.  He rushes to her side and they decide that they can’t wait to be married.  They must seize what life has given them and be happy.

They return to live with his boss and work on the new plane.  Naoko’s health deteriorates slowly but she bravely continues to support her husband’s work.  The day of the first test flight arrives.  Jiro goes off to work.  Naoko declares that she feels better and goes off for a walk.  The boss’ wife finds that Naoko has actually left for good.  She leaves three letters explaining her decision.  She wants to spare her husband the pain of her final days.

At work the new plane takes off and is a success.  It is the A5M the direct forerunner of the Zero fighter.  As everyone congratulates Jiro he feels a gust of wind and he knows that his wife has passed away.

The story moves forward to 1945.  Overhead giant American bombers are laying waste to Japan.  The factory has been obliterated and all Jiro can do is look on helplessly.  He slips into a dream again and meets Caproni for the last time.

Caproni asks him how he feels now that his dreams have been realized and Jiro reflects that he succeeded in making beautiful planes despite the costs.  He sees Naoko in the dream and she promises that she is waiting for him.

The film encapsulates many themes in Miyazaki’s works over time.  Not only the flying motif but elements of magic, of living life just for the joy of living, and his disdain for war.  Some might argue that a movie about designing a war plane glorifies war but in fact it is seen as doing the opposite.

For me personally, the film touched a chord from my childhood.  I was also fascinated by aircraft as a child and spent hours reading technical specifications and looking at pictures and doodling designs for wings and other parts.  Alas I was never able to make a go of it but still I do understand the passion to make something beautiful.