The Wind Rises

In Hayao Miyazaki’s own director’s statement the Jiro of this film is not one person: two real men of the period, Zero designer Jiro Horikoshi and the writer Tatsuo Hori, were merged into one character. The title comes from Hori’s story, taken in turn from a line by Paul Valéry. Whoever arrives for an engineer’s biography meets a composite. From the rumble of the 1923 earthquake to propellers and engines, most effects were made with human mouths by sound designer Koji Kasamatsu; Miyazaki wanted to perform them himself but had to finish the film. The machines end up sounding like something that breathes. Neither lead voice is a professional actor: Jiro is Hideaki Anno, who directed Evangelion, and the German Castorp is Stephen Alpert, once head of Ghibli’s international arm. It was attacked from both sides. Japanese nationalist groups objected, and Miyazaki had published an essay against constitutional change; criticism from Korea rested on Zeros assembled by forced labour, and Miyazaki answered that Horikoshi resisted the military’s demands. It was nominated for the animated feature Academy Award; Frozen won. A good fit if you take engines and an earthquake coming out of human mouths as a choice, not an oddity. Not for a viewer putting it on with a child; tuberculosis and the building of a warplane are central.