'The Wind Rises' A Discussion

The Wind Rises is an animated bio-pic about Japanese aviator Jiro Horikoshi written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. In lieu of a normal review here is a conversation about the movie with my good friend Alex Honnet.

Me: I finally saw The Wind Rises.
Alex: Thoughts!?
Me: I enjoyed it...
Alex: Its uneven.
Me: I thought the love story was well done but, yeah exactly, they kind of skip over all the interesting things with him making planes during WWII, its almost like an epilogue, which is like the most fascinating part.
Alex: Yeah the end is kind of funny, she dies and then there is the dream and he glosses over "things have been bad lately" and its like that maybe should have been what the movie was about?
Me: Exactly! They mention this idea, multiple times, of like the dream and beauty of making planes battling against what they're used for(war) and then skip over when that actually happens. Seemingly the fundamental question and struggle of the movie is not addressed.
Alex: I'm surprised it was as good as it was considering its complete lack of focus.
Me: Yeah, I very much enjoyed it- beautiful, great relationships. But I also felt like- Why this story? Why do a relatively straight forward movie now?
Alex: I thought there was a lot of interesting parallels to animation- stuck at a desk, drawing etc.
Me: Yesyes. Business contorting or redirecting your vision. Did you see the English or subtitled version?
Alex: English.
Me: Me too. I felt like, at points, it might have been helpful to see it in the original Japanese. Like weird shit, like that one point, they're running on the beach and Jiro says out of nowhere something like- "Aeronautics is incredible!" and its like- what?
Alex: Yes. And it was SO strange.
Me: Oh yeah, the Herzog character?
Alex: MOVIE STOPPER. Like "I can't take this seriously anymore."
Me: The story itself I thought was engaging and unique, you don't see a lot of movies that delve into the other side of WWII.
Alex: Yes very true. Also it caught flack in Japan for criticizing conservative values which is so interesting because when I saw it I did not get that vibe and I think its because we've been so conditioned at the way the war "was" we don't really have a great understanding of the Japanese rational.
Me: There didn't seem to be much criticism in there at all to me, other than maybe not-killing people is better than killing people...but their national identity, honor, and what is expected seems much more demanding as to personal conduct.
Alex: I think that's the point, also implying that in some way they deserved to lose.
Me: Oh I see!
Alex: For us "Japan was evil and aggressive and deserved to be beaten" for them "we didn't win, but we fought well."
Me: And to get an idea of how technologically behind they were because of being isolated for so long, I didn't know any of that.
Alex: That is REAL interesting, the modernization of Japan in the 20th century was amazing, same with South Korea because it happened even faster.
Me: What are your thoughts- in summation.
Alex: If nothing else- visually awesome. It has problems, but i also sort of applaud it for not really following a typical arc.

Rent It.