Studio Ghibli

The Wind Rises

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windrisesIn many ways, The Wind Rises is unlike any other of Hayao Miyazaki’s film.  It looks the same.  The characters are easily identified as his work and as always it is sumptuously animated. The subject is what is different.   It is neither an adventure movie nor a children’s movie, two categories in which nearly all of his previous films fit.  In many ways it is similar to Porco Rosso, another film that doesn’t fit comfortably in either genre.  However, The Wind Rises is also about a real person.  As highly fictionalizes it might be (and I really don’t know how much that is, as I am not familiar with more than most basic of facts here), Jori Horikoshi was a real person.  The fact that it is based in truth makes it significantly different.

The Wind Rises mostly covers Jori’s work on the Zero fighter just before WWII.  He struggles with designing the aircraft, having to overcome the superiority of foreign aeronautical technology.  He also must weigh his desire to create beautiful art with the knowledge that that art will almost certainly be used for terrible things.  While working on the fighter, he falls in love with Naoko, a beautiful young woman with tuberculosis.  Even Jiro’s dreams, which play a large part in the film, reflect his conflicted nature.  Some are sweet fantasies of meeting up with his hero, Italian airplane designer Caproni, others are nightmares of death from above.  Jiro’s romance with Nahoko is truly touching.  She knows just how limited her time will be and is determined to be with Jiro anyway.  They want to make the most of the short time they have together.

Wind is central to this film.  All through the film wind is blowing, whether it blows Jiro’s hat from his head, leading to his first meeting with Nahoko or blowing embers on to books rescued after an earthquake or the winds of change blowing through Japan and the rest of the world.  Wind plays a role in nearly every development in this film.

While there are weighty matters are being contemplated, to film is very relaxed and low-key.  It meanders from section to section, giving viewers small glimpse that eventually congeal into a cohesive whole.  It is at turns joyous and wistful and sad, but always moving. This is aided by just how good looking the animation is, particularly the dream scenes.  While the rest of the film is mostly restrained, the dreams allow Miyazaki to use a little more of his familiar flying scenes.  Like many of his films, especially Porco Rosso, there is a kind of awe of airplanes and flying machines on display.  It is infectious and wondrous.

One can’t help but see a little of Miyazaki himself in Jiro, especially at the end, when he and his hero look back on his dreams with some pride and some sorrow. It is an artist never quite satisfied with his work, but nonetheless proud of his accomplishments.  Miyazaki claims to be retired after this film, a claim he has made before, and if so, this is a fine way to end a career.    The Wind Rises may not be his best work, but it is a masterpiece anyway.

The Secret World of Arrietty Review

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Anytime a new Studio Ghibli film comes out is time for celebration. Especially when Hayao Miyazaki is at the helm. Even his lesser works, like the recent Ponyo, are still better than nearly any other animated films released in any given year. Miyazaki did not helm The Secret World of Arrietty, but he did write the screenplay and oversaw the production. First time director Hiromasa Yonebayashi, who worked as an animator on several previous Ghibli films, proves his worth here. Arrietty is a wonderful film.

The Secret World of Arrietty is the story about the relationship between Arrietty, a tiny Borrower, and Shawn, the sick young boy who moves into the house where Arietty and her parent live. She and her parents are Borrowers, people about six inches tall that live under the floorboards. They sneak around at night to borrower everything they need to live, like sugar cubes and the occasional tissue. They are careful to not let any of the big people to see them, lest their curiosity accidentally, or intentionally, doom the tiny folks. Despite this, Arrietty and Shawn form a friendship that simultaneously proves that interaction with people need not necessarily doom the Borrowers and that avoiding them is absolutely for the best. As a side note, Spiller, a wildman borrower who helps out Pod, steals both scenes he is in.

As always from Ghibli, Arrietty looks amazing. The animation quality is top notch, and the settings and backgrounds are absolutely beautiful. There is always some piece of beauty on the screen to take in. The film’s greatest triumph is the sense of scale. Nearly everything in the world of regular people, called Beans by the Borrowers, are a danger to them or has an alternate use. Nails not set flush are used as precarious steps, a pin becomes a makeshift sword and fishhooks with some line are used are repelling equipment. The interaction between the big people and the Borrowers are believable in a way that they could never be in live action. The film is worth seeing for the scale alone.

The sound is also mostly good. Wil Arnet as Pod does a bit of a Christian Bale Batman impression, but he is perfectly calm and unruffled at all times. Amy Poehler’s Homily is his opposite, always excited and on the edge of a nervous breakdown. The other voices are mostly very good, if only because they don’t draw attention to themselves. Except for David Henrie as the sickly Shawn, who sounds completely lifeless. The music is mostly excellent as well. With the exception of the awful ending credits song.

The middle part of the film is almost painfully slow at times. Arrietty tries to blend the adventure of many of Miyazaki’s movies, like Princess Mononoke and Castle in the Sky, with the more slice of life styled film’s like Spirited Away or My Neighbor Totoro, but in the end doesn’t really satisfy as either one of them. There is not action for an adventure movie, nor enough reflection for magical drama. But what is there is eminently entertaining. From a narrative standpoint, The Secret World of Arrietty is somewhat empty, but it has heart and beauty and that makes up for a lot.