Unlike the movies that Miyazaki is known for, which are more fantastical in nature, The Wind Rises is based (according to Wikipedia) on the fictionalized biography of Jiro Horikoshi, a Mitsubishi aircraft designer, spliced with a 1937 short story of the same name. The subject is controversial, as Horikoshi designed not only the A5M (whose prototype sported the gull-wing design featured in the movie), but also its successors, the A6M Zero, J2M and A7M, which were built and used extensively and primarily in World War II.
The choice of subject is notable for the staunchly pacifist Miyazaki, whose stories often carry deftly sculpted moral landscapes. It is also notable that the bulk of the story covers only up to the development of the A5M and predates Japan's involvement (or even Germany's invasion of Poland) by years, but the story interweaves the context leading up to war, highlighting the technical superiority of Germany, with characters lamenting how poor Japan was both in technology and economy, while not addressing the poor economic straits Germany had found itself after World War I, which helped Hitler gain traction. Miyazaki, in both the movie, and the 2009 serialized manga it is based upon, addressed the war in a short sequence at the end.
The movie, I feel, handles the autocracy of genius in an authentic manner, which could be considered callous and cold in a different light. I am tempted to compare it to A Beautiful Mind, which is based on a biography of the mathematician John Nash, but there are no repercussions to Nash's passion, other than the schadenfreude of witnessing his mental instability. Other than both men's wives figuring heavily in the narratives, the thrusts of the movies are widely divergent.
In the movie, Horikoshi talks to his childhood inspiration Caproni in his dreams - Caproni's company made planes for the third Axis country in both World Wars. Their paths are similar, and products of their time - while neither is inclined to make crafts of war, they both know that their designs would be used for war. Caproni wants to design the first passenger airplane to cross the Atlantic, but it crashes soon after lifting off from the water, somewhat reminiscent of the Spruce Goose, but without being able to hold up.
The movie itself does not flow into the supposed conflict of discovery versus repercussion, but of a man struggling to make his mark on the world. The Ghibli visual tones are prevalent throughout the movie, relishing in the rustic splendor of its settings, even through the depiction of the Great Kanto Earthquake, and it matches the tone of the narrative, which has Jiro going about his life in an almost care-free manner, focussing on his struggles to achieve his design. At times, only hints are given as to the considerations given to his welfare (cost of equipment in sponge cakes, secluding him after his hiatus) due to his status (he's introduced as a genius, and progressively is given larger projects, and his superiors indicate their protection only extends to when he is useful) - these are peripheral to his goal, though they are necessary. Aside from his design, his attention only goes to Naoko, who takes the place of the lead character in the short story.
I am reminded of G. H. Hardy's A Mathematician's Apology. Hardy's war was World War I, and he was happy in the fact that his study of pure mathematics was "useless", compared to the applied mathematics in ballistics---and belied by the fact that cryptographers have been mining his field in the century since. As a mathematician in trade, I myself subscribe to this ideal, which harkens to the Hippocratic oath, paraphrased: "Physician, do not harm." However, mathematicians probably have it easiest.
In the movie, Horikoshi talks to his childhood inspiration Caproni in his dreams - Caproni's company made planes for the third Axis country in both World Wars. Their paths are similar, and products of their time - while neither is inclined to make crafts of war, they both know that their designs would be used for war. Caproni wants to design the first passenger airplane to cross the Atlantic, but it crashes soon after lifting off from the water, somewhat reminiscent of the Spruce Goose, but without being able to hold up.
The movie itself does not flow into the supposed conflict of discovery versus repercussion, but of a man struggling to make his mark on the world. The Ghibli visual tones are prevalent throughout the movie, relishing in the rustic splendor of its settings, even through the depiction of the Great Kanto Earthquake, and it matches the tone of the narrative, which has Jiro going about his life in an almost care-free manner, focussing on his struggles to achieve his design. At times, only hints are given as to the considerations given to his welfare (cost of equipment in sponge cakes, secluding him after his hiatus) due to his status (he's introduced as a genius, and progressively is given larger projects, and his superiors indicate their protection only extends to when he is useful) - these are peripheral to his goal, though they are necessary. Aside from his design, his attention only goes to Naoko, who takes the place of the lead character in the short story.
I am reminded of G. H. Hardy's A Mathematician's Apology. Hardy's war was World War I, and he was happy in the fact that his study of pure mathematics was "useless", compared to the applied mathematics in ballistics---and belied by the fact that cryptographers have been mining his field in the century since. As a mathematician in trade, I myself subscribe to this ideal, which harkens to the Hippocratic oath, paraphrased: "Physician, do not harm." However, mathematicians probably have it easiest.
These insights do not cover contemporaries and their responsibilities during that war: from Einstein writing to FDR, leading to breakthroughs by Oppenheimer, Fermi, Teller and Ulam, among others who worked on nuclear weaponry, or Turing on the other side of the pond in the code-breaking effort. Less than half a century prior, Nobel has, as his legacy, the prizes awarded to the highlights of humanity, funded from the invention of dynamite, and his weaponry business.
In the end, it is the story of a man driven by passion, in a time when his aspirations dovetail with the wartime machinations of his nation. His goal is beauty - the realization of a lifetime of dreams. His dreams, as Caproni says, are cruel. He regrets - none of the planes he designed came back. But, at the end, he is thankful for the opportunity.
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