Thursday, November 7, 2013

'The Wind Rises,' movie review

   THE WIND RISES. © 2013 Nibariki - GNDHDDTK



"The Wind Rises," directed by Hayao Miyazaki ("Ponyo," "Howl's Moving Castle")




The great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki is 72 and has stated that “The Wind Rises” will be his final film. That’s after a career that incudes “Spirited Away,’ “Ponyo,” “Howl’s Moving Castle,” “My Neighbor Totoro” and last year’s sweet “Up on Poppy Hill.”


If “Wind” doesn’t rise to the high mark those films represent, this new one — a true story shot through with imagination — is notable for being very much for adults. It’s a gorgeous-looking, thoughtful epic, even if it falters at times.


As a young boy, Jiro Horikoshi dreams of airplanes. Growing up, he follows his flights of fancy, and in 1927 graduates university and takes a job as an aeronautical engineer. His designs are revolutionary, imaginative and, like Jiro himself, clinical but fanciful.


In 1932, as the world is changing fast, Jiro meets a girl, Nahoko, whose path he crossed years earlier. With her by his side, Jiro works on what will become the Zero fighter — used in kamikaze missions during World War II — even as people warn him of political storms to come. But like the work that draws him away from Nahoko at crucial moments, Jiro is too distracted by his love of airplanes to see the world they’re in.


Some have complained that Miyazaki’s film skirts the impact of the Zero. Indeed, only in its final frames does Jiro, speaking in a dream to the renowned Italian aircraft manufacturer Giovanni Caproni, realize that “none of the fighters returned.”


Yes, there is a lack of critical clarity. But much like Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1987 Oscar winner, “The Last Emperor,” “The Wind Rises” is a kaleidoscope of history seen through artistic eyes. Political timidity is one fault, an often draggy script is another. Yet the movie’s spell is solid, even if it doesn’t soar to the heights it could.


jneumaier@nydailynews.com



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