Review of The Wind Rises

The Wind Rises is perhaps Hayao Miyazaki's greatest movie. It stays true to the style in art and storytelling that you would expect from a Ghibli film, but at the same time it's arguably one of, if not the most mature work Miyazaki has ever made. It's beautiful in it's narrative, the music and every second of it just screams quality. The story isn't something we haven't seen before, but it's handled in such a way that it comes off as refreshing, meaningfull and touching. The characters are realistic almost to a scary degree, creating some of the most subtle emotions I've seen in a longtime. They come off as extremely human, they feel alive, you feel their joy, you feel their sorrow.

Something I noticed while watching this movie was the effort put into the animation. When a character was talking, and you'd expect only the mouth to be moving they went back and redrew the entire person, instead of just doing the usual copout and copying 95% of the drawing, only to draw a different mouth position. It felt nice, and it gave a feeling of quality that you could almost feel with your hands.

The directing is Miyazaki standard fare, taking the perspective of a child, a neutral observer, with the 'camera' neatly positioned lower then the characters heads, making the viewer feel immersed and as if they were a part of the scenery.

The worst thing I can say about this movie is how there wasn't a standout piece of music on the soundtrack, although I could also argue that this added to the beauty of the movie.

Also just a side note: Watch the movie in Japanese. I know Joseph Gordon whatever is in the dub, but to me hearing Hideaki Anno (yes, THAT Hideaki Anno) in the main role was just perfect to me.

Overall, this is one of the few movies I would call a true masterpiece. It stands out between all the other Miyazaki works as the least magical, most mature, but somehow encapsulates everything he is.

A feminist planefreak, who works undercover for Greenpeace :)