foxinthestars

So, I mentioned in my previous movie-watching post that I was planning to watch The Wind Rises for the first time that night. Well, I did, so I thought I'd come back with my thoughts.

TL;DR: not as bad as I feared, but Howl is still the last Ghibli movie to really blow me away.

Somehow I was braced for The Wind Rises to be worse than it was, and I will say it was interesting, but I won't say it was great. Looking at the reviews, the "elephant in the room" was the "history problem;" it is a sympathetic biopic of the man who designed the Zero fighter, which shades into Not Okay for a lot of people for very good reasons. I can't say it bothered me, really (thoughtless perhaps for someone whose grandfather fought in the Pacific theater in WWII, but it didn't). It also shades into what makes the movie interesting, the themes inherent in the story it's telling: the responsibility of an artist to their work balanced against their responsibilities to the world and the people around them; condemnation of a society that turns beautiful dreams into atrocities, that kind of thing, and of course, the suggestion that Miyazaki is presenting those themes autobiographically.

On the surface, there was a lot of period texture to enjoy. There were also a couple of artsy decisions with the audio. I actually thought Hideaki Anno did fine as the voice of the main character --- in fact I wouldn't have known it was him if I hadn't gone to look up whether it was the same guy who played Shizuku's dad in Whisper of the Heart. The human-voiced sound effects were interesting (and, er, more dignified than you'd think), but I don't see that they added anything coherent to the movie.

Actually that's my problem with this movie in a nutshell --- I don't see that very much that was in it added anything coherent to it. I say the themes are inherent to the story being told because that's basically as far as they get. Oh, there's a flash here and there, sometimes bordering on outright preachiness (flight as a beautiful but cursed dream, "Japan will explode," Jiro's talk about the plan that would work great if he left the guns off), but they're just occasional flashes and don't really add up to much.

I'll also concur with a criticism I've seen others make (like around ANN). Up until now, Miyazaki had a very feminist-friendly track record; in fact I think the strongest thematic thread running through his feature films is comings-of-age of girls and young women. So it was disappointing for him now to leave us with a movie whose female lead he never lifts above the status of "prop in a man's story." Seriously, what does Setsuko think, do, or feel in this film outside of being Jiro's perfect love interest and tragic foil? She paints, but we never even see more than a small, in-progress fragment of her work. Why does she paint? The movie doesn't seem to know or care. You could wring some meaning out of that fact itself if you were willing to get a bit meta, but I'm not willing to carry that much water, and it would still leave the woman as a mere tragic foil even if I did. It just lands me back in the same place as this movie's treatment of its themes in general.

What struck me about this one, thinking about it after watching it, is that the loose qualities of Miyazaki's late period really caught up with him this time. See, I think of him as having a "late period" that starts with Spirited Away and is marked by looser storytelling. I mean with, say, Princess Mononoke, if you wanted to pass a needle through that script, you'd have to pick your spot carefully; it's that tight. Everything that moves moves under known or knowable forces. Then suddenly, starting with Spirited Away, not so much. The later movies give a stickler plenty of opportunities to pull up short and go "wait, what?" and you just have to take them on their own terms to some degree. That's not necessarily a bad thing; it can give an involving and visionary quality, and up until now, all the late period movies (Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, and Ponyo) had such strong elements of magic that that not-fully-rationalized feel worked for them. Personally, I like Howl best of that lot and think it hit a good balance with it, using that not-quite-rational quality for magic and humor while gesturing --- loosely enough to make you think for yourself but clearly enough to draw you into the thinking --- toward themes solid enough to be really satisfying. But it's true of all three that the loose style fit the material.

In The Wind Rises, it doesn't. It really really doesn't. This one isn't about magic, or doesn't stake its claim on magic well enough to justify. It's just a movie full of unexplored themes (and characters and relationships), groundless artsy touches, and unannounced timeskips. And thematically, it wades into such a swamp that gesturing toward solid ground isn't good enough; I think it needed to trace a path in a clear, thoughtful, sensitive way, and as far as I can see, it just didn't.

From what I know of Miyazaki, I at least respect him too much to chalk this up to actual thoughtlessness, much less cowardice, but I suspect (if this is even the right words for it) a kind of artsy high-handedness...? Which is a bit awkward in itself. "I don't need to explain myself to you." "But you're the one who brought it up!"

I probably enjoyed this one more than Princess Kaguya, and I can see myself watching it again as an intellectual exercise, but favorite movie material it ain't.