Last Sunday the 27th of April I got an amazing opportunity. I was allowed to watch the last first of Hayao Miyazaki, The Wind Rises before its première! As a big fan of Miyazaki’s work I was thrilled and looking forward to the experience. As you’ll be able to tell when reading this piece this is a movie I’ve been looking forward to.
Before the movie started there was a short lecture about Miyazaki, his work, his words of wisdom and to everyone’s surprise there were even a few prices handed out. After which there was time to enjoy Miyazaki’s farewell film, simply put, because that’s the feelings I had at the end of the movie.
The beginning of the movie gave me, like almost every Studio Ghibli movie does, a warm feelings, I was very interested in what was going to come next and wasn’t very surprised about the transaction that mainly took place in the beginning of the movie. From the very beginning you see the main character Jiro trying to achieve his dream and you also see his will to achieve said dream. He isn’t afraid to learn or stand up for others. For instance Jiro is determined to build a plane that is perfect and clearly known what he wants, but it’s not the only thing he cares about. It was very fun to see that he during his journey of achieving his dream he can share this with a friend who is trying to do the same, you see them grow up and develop together, this adds to the realistic image of life itself that Miyazaki likes to show his audience. Despite their mutual dream there are conflicting feelings between the two, because of the setting of the movie, but it is very clear what everything’s about for Jiro and his friend; building airplanes.
Family also plays a part in this movie, although we don’t see much of Jiro’s family aside from his sister and move, the most important person to Jiro is Nahoko, the girl he marries after a surprising course of events. This situation also shows that the movie tries to sketch a believable imagine because not everything end up going the way you’d expect or hope it would. It’s definitely not a classic love story but it is a very special, heartwarming and at times even funny story. Here Miyazaki shows that Jiro doesn’t get everything handed to him when it comes to love, but is sure of his feelings which makes the story extra beautiful.
The end of the movie gave me a mixed feeling. There was happiness which was entirely justified and aside from that sadness, which was also fitting. I definitely didn’t feel an emptiness, The Wind Rises has more than met my expectations and I was very satisfied after watching this movie. By making this movie, in my opinion, Miyazaki chose the perfect ending to his filmmaking career.
The movie can be seen in Dutch theatres from the 1st of May. I wish you all a lot of fun watching this movie if you’re going to go see it.
Studios: Studio Ghibli
Released on: 20th of July 2013
Rating: 80/100
