Review of The Wind Rises

One of the things I have noticed in most Studio Ghibli films I've watched thus far is that aside from the scenic and beautifully created artworks, they tend to give emphasis on the plot progression and base the development of the characters on how the story goes rather than base the story on how the characters are established in the beginning. While that is not necessarily a bad thing, and in fact creates a more creative avenue of stretching out character development, I feel that it becomes more difficult to convey a satisfying plot since the viewer has to get the feel for a certaincharacter and justify how he acts towards plot events based on logical reasoning, instead of understanding how he acts based on how he was established as a character in the beginning. Should that fail, the character becomes too plain - without any real character. That being said, one of I believe is important for the plot to succeed is to make the plot as active as possible, to force the characters to undertake decisions and actions that will define how he is as a character in the plot.

These two things, plot and characters, are the very reasons why I cannot totally appreciate the film "The Wind Rises". If I wasn't mistaken, the film is based on real life, and of course, it was truly heart-moving and inspiring as a real-life portrayal of events. But setting that fact aside, objectively speaking, I feel that as a film, it should have been more careful in developing the story and making character development. The story talks about a man named Jirou who dreamed of designing airplanes and how he was able to pursue that path through thick and thin, with his inspiration Mr. Caproni. The biggest problem of such plot is that it doesn't have a real and clear plot. The elements of the plot like conflict, climax and resolution are not properly laid out - the film almost sounded monotonous story-wise. It felt that the events passed by without any real impact to what the story is really trying to achieve. The conflict, which is apparently the struggle of Jirou to pursue his dream is not really seen as a conflict but rather a tool to progress the story further. To me as a viewer the conflict did not really affect Jirou negatively, the plot seemed to just let him have his way. Ofc it was based on real life, and I have absolutely nothing against what happened but as a film, I just hoped that the conflict was emphasized more and heightened its tone and impact to the story. The climax is not clear to me. Nothing seemed to be fit to be called a climax for the plot because everything that happened seemed to be a minor detail that could have been developed more. The resolution wasn't really there, and considering the conflict of pursuing his career, its resolution was already given at the early point of the plot. The story, all in all, was not toned properly and the events just seem to come and go. One thing I would like to point out though is how I love those scenes which do not transition really clearly as to whether not it is reality or a dream. Such scenes give color to the otherwise plain story because it probably reveals how Jirou already senses his dreams as reality and how passionate he is with his dream that he believes in those so much it becomes reality.

Jirou was portrayed as a man with big dreams of designing airplanes. While that was fantastic in a way no character conflict was really seen aside from that, making him the generic good guy MC. As what I have been mentioning, I absolutely have nothing against real-life scenarios (i.e. if the real Jirou is like that then it's totally cool with me, what I am judging is the film). Like what I pointed out earlier, the thing with 'plain' MCs is that the burden of fleshing him out in the absence of established personalities is making the plot as active as possible, and force the characters to make decisions and actions that reveal his character. Well, since the plot wasn't active at all, Jirou wasn't properly developed and stayed the good guy he always is. It's not necessarily bad for a main character not to have a significant change in character as a resolution, and in fact Jirou's consistent personality is necessary in conveying the passion of Jirou in his career and in everything he does, so most probably the main problem is the plot. The other characters were also plain and monotonous too, and they were to some extent mediocre.

Given two challenges that the film has to overcome, plain characters and story, and despite the majestic scenery and animation, I feel that it would be unfair to rate a good score out of this film, based on my standards. Still, it was definitely worth a watch.