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REVIEW: The Wind Rises BD+DVD


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vashfanatic



Joined: 16 Jun 2005
Posts: 3489
Location: Back stateside
PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 12:29 pm Reply with quote
To me, the (fatal) flaw of this movie is how much time it decides to focus on the maudlin, completely fabricated story about his dying wife, and how little it decides to spend any time on the deeper issues. But I've talked about how much I hate this movie and its whitewashing of history enough that I'm not going to reiterate it here. Mostly, I feel it wasted an interesting premise on a dime-a-dozen Sick Girl tearjerker that never actually happened.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 14084
Location: currently stalking my waifu
PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 12:44 pm Reply with quote
My thoughts, in no particular order:

---Anno's performance was atrocious, one of the worst I've ever heard. I literally was unable to watch the movie subbed.

---the Egyptian pyramids were not built by slaves, so that comparison was invalid.

---the whole sick girlfriend angle was not only sexist - a bizarre turn of events for the decidedly feminist Miyazaki - but also boring. She does nothing of any significance in the entire movie. She doesn't even inspire him or anything.

---in fact, the whole movie was boring. Functional, but boring. It had none of the Ghibli magic that could be found in - for example - Porco Russo,

---anyone who thinks this was Miyazaki's swansong is delusional. The man has already talked about coming back and making something else.
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Pepperidge



Joined: 13 Sep 2003
Posts: 1104
Location: British Columbia, Canada
PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 12:51 pm Reply with quote
vashfanatic wrote:
To me, the (fatal) flaw of this movie is how much time it decides to focus on the maudlin, completely fabricated story about his dying wife, and how little it decides to spend any time on the deeper issues. But I've talked about how much I hate this movie and its whitewashing of history enough that I'm not going to reiterate it here. Mostly, I feel it wasted an interesting premise on a dime-a-dozen Sick Girl tearjerker that never actually happened.


That's the thing though: the two things you mention play a vital role in establishing Jiro as a man blinded by passion. The rose-tinted world the film invites you into is one driven by Jiro's love for this woman. She fuels both his inspiration, and his obliviousness toward the true nature of what he is creating, and that veil is lifted the moment she dies. The film doesn't whitewash history, it paints Jiro as a naive man who is given a harsh dose of reality at the end.
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jroa



Joined: 08 Aug 2012
Posts: 537
PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 12:56 pm Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:


...

--the whole sick girlfriend angle was not only sexist - a bizarre turn of events for the decidedly feminist Miyazaki - but also boring. She does nothing of any significance in the entire movie. She doesn't even inspire him or anything.

...

---anyone who thinks this was Miyazaki's swansong is delusional. The man has already talked about coming back and making something else.


I guess the girl was just there as a symbol to make a point about how Jiro's obsession with his work prevented him from having a better family life, which also seems to apply to Miyazaki himself by extension.

Even though Miyazaki might continue to do short films for the company museum and other such smaller projects on the side, this is very likely to remain his final full-length theatrical film. He has not said or done anything to suggest the opposite, so I believe he does seriously intend to retire from making this specific type of movie ever again.


Last edited by jroa on Tue Nov 18, 2014 12:58 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 12:58 pm Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:
M

---the Egyptian pyramids were not built by slaves, so that comparison was invalid.


There's plenty of evidence to suggest they weren't, but the point the film is making seems to be working with the long-held assumption they were. Thematically it fits.

Quote:

---anyone who thinks this was Miyazaki's swansong is delusional. The man has already talked about coming back and making something else.


He's serious this time. He's nearly 80. He'll make short films, but I don't think he has another 4 years of sitting at a drawing table making a feature-length movie by hand plus all the storyboards anymore.
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thekingsdinner



Joined: 25 Sep 2010
Posts: 1067
Location: Geertruidenberg, Netherlands
PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 1:12 pm Reply with quote
I watched this movie just yesterday. Overall I enjoyed it a lot and it did get me to care for the main characters. Let's not forget the mindblowing animation of course.

The only thing I didn't like was Hideaki Anno's performance. Like the review says, it leaves a lot to be desired and I couldn't agree more.

My favorite Hayao Miyazaki film will always be Castle of Cagliostro.
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Angel'sArcanum



Joined: 02 Sep 2010
Posts: 303
Location: Toronto, Ontario
PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 1:26 pm Reply with quote
I heard Anno was kinda weak, but THAT bad huh? I watched it dubbed and I thought Joseph Gordon-Levitt was pretty awful, and I like his live-action work. He murmurs his lines like ALL THE TIME and he just sounds really unenthusiastic. I found it funny though that aside from Levitt, the only person I recognized in the movie having not looked into the cast prior was Werner Herzog of all people. I had just learned about him from a random episode of Last Call I saw when I was up late in the summer, but now I've seen one of his films (Stroszek; really liked it) and want to check out his other stuff. He has quite a distinctive voice though, so it was pretty easy to catch in the film.

I'm straying off topic; I personally wasn't huge on The Wind Rises. I thought the pacing was wildly uneven, the ideas felt a bit slight, the romance was really corny (which is kind of upsetting for Miyazaki) and it felt oddly melodramatic in bits. Currently I'd place it in the lowest echelon of Miyazaki films (all the post-Spirited Away films coincidentally) but it still highest out of itself, Ponyo and Howl's, although, this is such an impressive review Zac that you have me wanting to rewatch it and see if I get anything more out of it on a second go. I guess I still wish Miyazaki would make a final film that sits amongst the heights of Totoro, Mononoke and Spirited Away, but again, perhaps I'm not giving this film enough credit and I could probably live with this being his swan song (especially given the self-reflexive nature).

Nice to see more reviews from you Zac, and quite an exceptionally written one at that!
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navycherub



Joined: 26 Oct 2007
Posts: 233
PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 1:59 pm Reply with quote
This was a great writeup! I went in expecting a negative review for some reason, probably because of how I thought Zac felt about the movie from ANNCasts a few months back when it was having its theatrical run. Lots of good points to be made about Kaze Tachinu being about Miyazaki himself as well as Jiro Horikoshi.
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5407
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 2:02 pm Reply with quote
thekingsdinner wrote:
My favorite Hayao Miyazaki film will always be Castle of Cagliostro.

Castle of Cagliostro is probably also my favorite movie directed by Miyazaki, But for some reason I do not consider Cagliostro a Miyazaki film; even though he was very involved on it (I was under the impression that he only directed but did not write).

I supposed The Castle of Cagliostro does not feel like a Miyazaki film to me because it is more edgy compared to the more friendly movies he did at Ghibli.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As far as The Wind Rises, it is not a movie for me based on this review, and what Zac and Justin have commented before. I like character development, but this movie seems more concerned in idolizing Jiro Horikoshi, and the story does not sound very interesting to me.
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katscradle



Joined: 05 Jan 2013
Posts: 469
PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 3:14 pm Reply with quote
Nice, nice review.
I managed to see The Wind Rises in theaters dubbed and liked it immensely. So I ordered the BD, which showed up early, but I still haven't watched it in Japanese. It's the first Ghibli film I've purchased a copy of since Totoro. (I should probably get some of the others too so the ANN Review-a-thon might be helpful).

Basically I felt the film is an idea of personal lives in a turbulent time of history and while some of it's characters were real people, and there are historical events and literature which it draws on, Miyazaki used a great deal of creative license to make the story and the vision he was seeking to express. It is so much a fiction I don't think Miyazaki was trying for something else. So the controversy didn't bother me.

I found it all beautiful.
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skaly



Joined: 26 Jun 2006
Posts: 148
PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 3:16 pm Reply with quote
The equivalent for Tezuka (i.e., the artist's view of his own art) might be exemplified in Barbara.
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Fronzel



Joined: 11 Sep 2003
Posts: 1906
PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 3:27 pm Reply with quote
Pepperidge wrote:
vashfanatic wrote:
To me, the (fatal) flaw of this movie is how much time it decides to focus on the maudlin, completely fabricated story about his dying wife, and how little it decides to spend any time on the deeper issues. But I've talked about how much I hate this movie and its whitewashing of history enough that I'm not going to reiterate it here. Mostly, I feel it wasted an interesting premise on a dime-a-dozen Sick Girl tearjerker that never actually happened.


That's the thing though: the two things you mention play a vital role in establishing Jiro as a man blinded by passion. The rose-tinted world the film invites you into is one driven by Jiro's love for this woman. She fuels both his inspiration, and his obliviousness toward the true nature of what he is creating, and that veil is lifted the moment she dies. The film doesn't whitewash history, it paints Jiro as a naive man who is given a harsh dose of reality at the end.

I lean much more toward this kind of interpretation. The film ends, as it began, in Jiro's beautiful dream-world, and here dream-Caproni points out to Jiro that the woman he loves is here. Did he need her pointed out? And while she delivers this loving sentiment "live!", she is running toward him, but she disappears before reaching him. Didn't she deserve better than to disappear before even getting to him? Shouldn't Jiro have done something about that? But he's noticed her far too late.

Standing above a field of wreckage, the intrusion of ugliness into a fantasy world of beauty, and having watched Jiro's love vanish, I took Caproni's "Let's have some wine" as rather cold-blooded.
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Lord Dcast



Joined: 07 Nov 2014
Posts: 644
Location: 'Straiya
PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 4:08 pm Reply with quote
I admit this film has it's flaws, but it truly is another Miyazaki masterpiece to be remembered. I couldn't help but cry when I saw this in the theatres, when it FINALLY came out here four months after America got it...
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Kougeru



Joined: 13 May 2008
Posts: 5521
PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 4:38 pm Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:
My thoughts, in no particular order:

---Anno's performance was atrocious, one of the worst I've ever heard. I literally was unable to watch the movie subbed.

---the whole sick girlfriend angle was not only sexist - a bizarre turn of events for the decidedly feminist Miyazaki - but also boring. She does nothing of any significance in the entire movie. She doesn't even inspire him or anything.

.


The dub was really bland and dull as well. Overall the voices in both version felt lazy and unenthusiastic.

I don't see how it was sexist at all. Yes, this didn't really happen but the whole point of her story was to show his obsessive nature and character flaws.
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invalidname
Contributor



Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 2434
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
PostPosted: Tue Nov 18, 2014 5:35 pm Reply with quote
I sometimes forget that when he's not dealing with forum trolls or livestreaming terrible movies, Zac can be an intensely thoughtful guy. Thanks for this.
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