Review of The Wind Rises

The Wind Rises adapts the true story of a japanese plane engineer Jiro Horikoshi, who designed the Mitsubishi A5M aeroplane. The movie follows Horikoshi's life, from his childhood to his engineering career. The movie focuses mostly on the aeroplanes, but it does have a romantic subplot. The animation is what is to be expected from a Ghibli movie. As an adjective it would be: breathtaking. Every scene could be its own masterpiece. And the scenes get reinforced with the amazing soundtrack that Joe Hisaishi made for the movie. The soundtrack feels so fitting for a “Ghibli movie”, since Hisaishi has been a part of most moviesmade by Miyazaki. Hisaishi combined the best bits of other movies soundtracks into 49 minutes of bliss.

The sound design in general was amazing in the movie. The sound director Eriko Kimura took risks when listening to Miyazaki's view on the movie. Miyazaki wanted to make each sound effect with his vocals. Kimura took note of this and used human made sounds for each noise in the movie. Aeroplane propellers and such are made with mouth sounds. At first it’s a bit disturbing, but I feel it adds to the feel of the movie and at times adds to the story.

In the story there is no traditional conflict per se, but instead the story focuses on the personal suspense of Jiro Horikoshi. His aviational dreams and his love life are the main points of conflict. There is no bad guy, but instead there are obstacles to overcome. This makes the pacing of the story alright, but does take away from the tension of the movie.

As for being Miyazaki's last movie, The Wind Rises combines everything Miyazaki is known for. The Wind Rises feels like a celebration of Miyazaki in a way. The movie takes you on a visual and sonic journey, and leaves you thinking about life. And even though mr. Miyazaki has retired. He left us an important message with this movie: “The wind is rising! We must try to live.”