Movie Review: The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu)

It was one of the most thoughtful and beautiful works of art I have ever seen with my own eyes. I feel ashamed for myself after watching this film.

This movie is a tribute to Jiro Horikoshi who designed the A6M World War II fighter plane. At word of this, people may think: What is so beautiful about a weapon of mass destruction, for does not it bring out the most evil of humanity? But that, and all other great planes engineered, would have been merely a product, destined for failure, destined to be overtaken and destined to meet its end. It sounds like a sisyphean ordeal - to work so hard for something to be of success, only to have it destroyed and restart again. But the real beauty should lie in the satisfaction gained from inching one step closer to a faraway dream. Plus, if certain things are never to be removed, how can there be more progress and innovation?

I personally feel the most important takeaway of this movie is not about the technology that makes the country which owns it proud, but about the power of dreams and how far they take us into our long, winding lives. A lot has been packed into this two hour film, every detail in it holds a certain significance to this message contained within itself. I did not even understand what its meaning at the first look, but when thinking more deeply into it, I felt that without myself having the privilege to be able to chase my dreams, I would never relate to this movie nor appreciate how important dreams are to my life.

The transversal between reality and fiction in the movie jogged my memory of another work called "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". Even though I merely studied a passage about it in Secondary School, it left quite an impression in my mind. At that time, when I was in Secondary School, having worked my way up with my good academic results, I did not know of what dream I wanted to chase. I was hiding myself away from it. I was even scared of people asking me what was my dream or what I would want to do in the future. Studies, school, work, survival was all that I could think of and I had no interest in what the future holds, not until later in life did I discover how fascinated I was with the future world. I realised that my soul had been a cold dry wind blown over the empty shell of my body, unnourished, uninspired, undefined. Alas, how much I have grown!

The film also gave some perspective to Japan's pre-World War II history. Life was hard. There was the Great Kanto Earthquake, economic depression and a lot of trouble. But it was also a time of excitement, when things were progressing faster and engineers like Jiro were continuously innovating on the next big thing. There was also a bit of insight about Germany and their attitudes toward the Japanese. A lot of these were quite new to me because I did not study much of history, but the amount of thought put into the production of movie inspired me to research further into it to understand the context of the plot, as well as its historical backgrounds.

What was especially important too was the essence of innovation - inspiration. Inspiration always comes first before technology plays catch-up, as what the movie claims. As shown when Jiro was in pursuit of the design of the fighter planes when he found that a mackerel fish bone was in line with the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) standards. I also know of many influential people like Martin Luther King and Neil Armstrong who made immense contributions to mankind because of their grand dreams.

I hope more people will be able to appreciate the beauty of this movie, and be able to find it of some use in life.