A mild sunset pelted on the skin, the tongue savoring the freshly brewed afternoon tea, an onset of mild rain with a tone of melancholy carried in the moist breeze, when the sea, the sky, and every human conflict calls for a culmination, is what forms the Ghibli masterpiece, The Wind Rises.
Like the countable days accompanied by the beaten mundane sense of the heart, the feeling of touching one's dream, meeting one's dream, and pouring the heart and the sole into its culmination, a beautiful ride through the wind, the vintage cars of the train, the subconscious' whimsy in its dream, and the fighter planes born to rain hellfire upon humans, as the fruit of human conflict itself, is the collective reel of progressiveness that one goes through in the matter of the length of the film.
Humans are confused, angered, raged, flawed, sad in their little wins and losses, and caught in the ruins brought forth by the destruction of nations at war.
A war story blended with the tragic end of love, a love that was the lovechild of a breezy acquaintance and the beauty in patience for it to turn into a reality, a pleasurable and delicate curiosity due to the unpredictability of togetherness, The Wind Rises is a bittersweet journey from childhood to an anti-climactic adult, mourning over the lost art of their effort, as well as their lover.
Despite the tragic end, the overwhelming sense of living and the cheerful agnosticism in the act is highly defined in the scenes. As if the colors, the sky, the people, and the conversations are bursting altogether into a celebration of a story.
Visuals and their close resonance with the theme
Like Charles Lamb, the romantic essayist, Miyazaki's use of blended fiction and weaving it with threads of reality makes the mild and sensitive yet exhilarating adventure that is the entire film. With the blood-red sunsets, debris of airplane parts, and rustic dreams, Jiro lives through a myriad of dreams enclosed in a series of realism, a touchback to reality.
The last letter from the beloved, and the resonance of the growing distance, an assurance from the wind that she will be gone, and will leave behind the unyielding sense of living in her lover's heart, a boy away from home, away from all the warmth he should have been nurtured with, basking within his own company, yet declaring his long requited love for Nahoko, the series of art flashing like cinematic parallels is ahead of the beautified ideation of aesthetics.
The presence of the home is associated with each character as the plot progresses into the certainty and the end that feels open to the viewers' interpretation. Where extreme creativity meets with an attractive set of visuals is the high of every creator, that the resonance of their creation reaches them after reverberating throughout the eyes of the world.
Inspiration and Culmination of this masterpiece
The entry of the movie is the initiation, the ideation of a dream, and the relentlessly hard yet persevering journey of the protagonist, who is inspired by the real-life Jiro Horikoshi, a celebrated engineer for designing Japanese fighter designs of World War II - the most famous of his creations - Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter.
It is a creator's artist's license to be inspired and to claim it as their lovechild to create something parallelled with their fantasy. The life-like renditions of the situations and the association of people in Jiro's vision and dream of his projects are like participating in his life as it happens.
Jiro's interaction and anticipation of that one turning point of life to change his trajectory are when he found Nahoko, and it bloomed into the most delicate and beautiful relationship.
Miyazaki's treatment of human conflict and its effect on their hearts, his handling of human relationships, its rise and fall along with the perspectives and their participation in love, all enclasped into a delicate tale told through their conversations, is the creator's highest point of creativity.
The visuals strike the chord of a child watching their favorite fairytale. Still, it is an entire generation of people watching the relatability and incredible potential of the film as it happens to them.
The rustic sound of train tracks running on the lines, a book of a childhood hero, an aeronautical engineer in hand, eyes were taming the undiscovered curiosity of the world, rushing past sunsets as if defying time with the sweetest pleasure that is the adventure of living, timeless.
The timeless storytelling of Miyazaki is the essence of the spellbinding turn of events, growth into a diligent adult, unwavering about the nights and the days, pouring every ounce of effort into the culmination of his dreams where he has boarded planes with dozens of people, the joy of flying, being lost among the clouds, and the newfound inspiration on his return to reality.
Miyazaki and his Treatment of the theme of 'Love' in the film
The scenes of closeness between Jiro and Nahoko are birthed with such tenderness and innocence with the kind of divine intimacy in the actions of trying to be together with each other, the prayer of living, beauty brimming at the edge of their constant warmth flowing towards each other.
Paper planes to reach the other from their balconies, the alluring, welcoming charm in the littlest gestures paved the way for the tender and delicate love that formed in their hearts.
The hotel banquet was like life dancing on the floor, the most interesting conversation about war and its impact with an eccentric stranger. A spontaneous flow of warmth is attached to the characters like a string, as they are driven by their human instinct to live, love, laugh, cry, and most genuinely be human.
The ruins of war in a picturesque of crashed aircraft, felled buildings, and estranged people looking for their homes, the backdrop speaks to our souls in hushed despair, the situation left by the impact of World War II. the subtle persisting melodious tone of music in the background is like losing ourselves in the music of living.
Ghibli has made a living, breathing, mourning, and despairing look so earthly and beautiful that it is hard to put the finger on what the feeling entails after one reaches the end that does not feel like an ending.
Like a fine wine, the movie ages into the highest form of human age, when one has felt sadness, grief, success, failure, confusion, and relief all at once while mourning and welcoming a new life, the unfairness of it all, the beauty of the same. Because, "Beauty is Terror" - Julian Morrow, The Secret History.
Sense of ending to new beginnings accompanied by a grieving heart
Illness, deterioration of health, or just a hazardous ending of life as a result of war, the presence of death is glaringly visible in a way it pierces the heart in the most delicately passionate way, that starts as a pleasurable ticklee of happiness, that matures into indifference with life, to the cigarette high delight of falling in love, the foreign addiction that makes one focused in their living, and the frail unpredictability that can break it all as if it was an illusion of castle made in the sky.
As if Jiro was only running after the white trail left by airplanes, and hopefully, he will wake up on his mattress, wondering if it was all a dream, or as if knowing it ends with him toasting to his work and his deceased wife with the wine he would enjoy at Mr. Caproni's.
Hayao Miyazaki is the poet with stories and scenic visualization of such mindful beauties, lined in the course of timeless movies, an adventurous and tragic delight altogether.
