The Wind Rises

Started by MacGuffin, July 19, 2013, 06:18:15 PM

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MacGuffin






Release date: July 20, 2013

Starring: Hideaki Anno, Mirai Shida, Jun Kunimura, Hidetoshi Nishijima

Directed by: Hayao Miyazaki

Premise: A look at the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the man who designed Japanese fighter planes during World War II.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

Lottery

This will be really interesting, Miyazaki loves his planes. And the sad man who made Neon Genesis voices someone in this.

Also, quite excited for Takahata's next film.

Kellen

New Trailer:




looks wonderful

matt35mm

This movie is really great. If I had seen it last year, it probably would have been my favorite of that year.

Herzog does a voice in this English dub, and it's so wonderful/perfect that it wouldn't be a total shame to see this with the English dub--it's probably the only way to be able to see this on the big screen in the U.S. Of course, when it's released on video, I'll definitely prefer the Japanese version, but if you're feeling bitter about having to listen to an English dub, at least be comforted by the fact that Herzog is perfectly used.

It's just so masterfully done. Everything is deeply felt, every choice thought out, done with such care, and yet still has a lightness. Hell, it's perfect this is about a plane engineer--the movie works like a plane. Perfectly engineered to get this heavy-as-fuck thing to be light enough to fly.

The kind of movie where I could feel my eyes burning because I didn't blink very much while watching it.

Lottery

Fuck me, I wanna watch this so bad. Same with The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter/Princess Kaguya.

I prefer to waytch Miyazaki in english and Takahata in Japanese but I feel this one would be more appropriate in its original langauge.

Just Withnail

The atmospheres and the moods in this are so wonderful, and I have to disagree with jenkins who posted in the top 10 thread that the real life situation took something away from Miyazaki - I thought it made an extremely interesting departure from his more fantastical things. The insertion of his whimsy and surrealism into this very "pragmatic" subject matter made the film...

Quote from: matt35mm on February 18, 2014, 11:42:15 AM
...perfectly engineered to get this heavy-as-fuck thing to be light enough to fly.

But I did find it a big odd that the fact that these engineers are designing war planes is never brought up as problematic. I guess it could be a way of putting you in their mindsets, that they themselves just don't think about it (but is that likely?). I'm certainly glad there's no finger-wagging moral, and war is certainly present, but I was just surprised that the fact that there's a heavy dark side to this techinological progress, was never brought up.

jenkins

it's an interesting topic bc i know what you mean just withnail, the war setting is jarring, and as an american i'm terribly aware of how japan lost ww2

it treads a dangerous line. there's the scene where he's discussing lightness in his plane's design, and he says the plane he wants is possible without the weight of guns, and everyone's head turns, because he's building war planes and gunlessness won't happen. i think his own interests are focused on planes, and of course there's sadness in the movie about death. he's not building the guns he's not building the bombs. though he's building the machines that carry the weapons

an encompassing point is about moving forward (japan is multiple times called backwards during the movie) through ideas transforming into the actual. here, german aviation is the rival. japan wants to innovate in aviation the way germany had, and well i doubt anyone wanted germany to win ww2. is there a sense that japan didn't want to lose ww2? such a strange thing to consider, how their loss happened, and how their loss is a factor in considering this movie and its message. whether war is the main theme or not (i don't think it is) linking the movie to ww2 does stimulate perplexing conversations. conversations, i imagine, which are viewed and discussed from different angles within japan

so i know you mean, and i feel that way too, although i admire and appreciate art when it stimulates the thoughts and feelings of others, so i appreciate miyazaki's choice and its various possible interpretations. one interpretation is he's saying be strong and move forward, or you're gonna lose a world war. dang

matt35mm

Quote from: Just Withnail on February 18, 2014, 04:46:14 PM
But I did find it a big odd that the fact that these engineers are designing war planes is never brought up as problematic. I guess it could be a way of putting you in their mindsets, that they themselves just don't think about it (but is that likely?). I'm certainly glad there's no finger-wagging moral, and war is certainly present, but I was just surprised that the fact that there's a heavy dark side to this techinological progress, was never brought up.

I felt like it was, though relatively subtly. There was the dialogue in the dream: "Would you rather live in a world with or without pyramids?" referring to the beauty and ugly history of the pyramids and why/how they were built.

There were one or two other conversations that acknowledged that it was problematic, and that, yes, to keep on doing it, they would have to tune out what this was being used for. I feel like it's woven into the fabric of the movie, not ignored or made light of, but also not the focus, for there is no clear moral message that the movie could give.

But there's enough there for us to go off and do our own thinking about it. And it's likely true that the reality of the time was that people didn't talk or think about it too much, because it would have made it impossible to go on with their own lives.

We're all aware that our technology (smartphones, Apple products, most stuff) is directly attached to human suffering, made in factories with horrible conditions. We eat food that was made under horrible conditions for animals and people. I'm not saying that to make any moral point, but rather to point out: isn't it true that we are aware of these things, but we keep them in the back of our minds rather than in the front? Do we have conversations about factories in China when we use our smartphones, or think about where the computers we edit our movies on come from? We kind of can't. I mean, we can try to eat humanely and research where our things come from, but if your dream is to make beautiful things (that can also be used to kill people), then you kind of have to tell yourself that all you're doing is making that beautiful thing.

So I felt a degree of honesty about how that was dealt with in this movie. I didn't feel like it was dodged or smoothed over, but that any more about it would have brought our contemporary view of WWII and morality into a story that takes place during its own place and time.

jenkins

Quote from: matt35mm on February 18, 2014, 05:37:54 PM
But there's enough there for us to go off and do our own thinking about it. And it's likely true that the reality of the time was that people didn't talk or think about it too much, because it would have made it impossible to go on with their own lives.
really like your whole reply and i'm jealous of this paragraph. you made the opposite point in one paragraph! nice. you're so right. i do carry my contemporary ideas into an idea from the past, and while that's possible, it's not necessary if you're viewing the movie as itself. i value miyazaki's approach in that regard. he did it well

Just Withnail

I think you're very right Matt, and I think I was just taken aback my the extreme calmness that it approached the issues with, which is a big quality of the film and not to it's detriment. In the month since I've seen it many details (like the great mentioned line "lighter without guns") where the issue is very clearly brought up have disappeared and I've magnified the issue in my mind, probably because I was unsure of what the film was really doing. Which you have done a good job of trying to articulate and I'll definitely have a very interesting second viewing with your points in mind.

Quote from: Just Withnail on February 18, 2014, 04:46:14 PM
that they themselves just don't think about it (but is that likely?)

And I realise what a silly thing this is to say and I can no longer figure out why I said it, seeing it's so blatantly wrong. As you say, we do it every day, right now, typing on my computer.

As I'm writing now I'm thinking maybe I got the whole thing backwards, and that maybe this is even what the film talks the most about, that it's not really subtle at all, but by the very mood of the film it gives us a very interesting glimpse into exactly this mindset.

Lottery

I kinda glimpsed over the above discussion because I don't want to get spoiled or whatever but one important thingto know about Miyazaki is that he lives with the contradiction of being an anti-war pacifist who is/was in love with war machines, tanks and figher places. In fact, his father ran a company which helped develop warplanes during World War 2. When he was younger, all he could draw were miltary vehicles.

So there's been this odd contradiction of people claiming that he's an pacifist traitor by right wing Japan and others complaining that he really isn't considering the implications of the film, the dark nature of the events in it.

More stuff on it:
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/nov/13/entertainment/la-et-mn-miyazaki-20131113


As I said, I haven't seen Kaze Tachinu but I'm dying to do so.

jenkins

today at Best Buy i was staring at low-priced Studio Ghibli blu-rays. i kept staring at them and their low prices.

my only sense of conflict was motived by the fact that i'd never expected their prices to drop. so i was wondering if blu-rays really are a dead media. i know there's trouble when Disney lowers prices. i felt like my value system was tangled. i felt destined to regret spending money on this physical media that's either actually vanishing or being made to vanish. i was confused because when am i not going to want to watch a Studio Ghibli movie, why would i not want one always ready for me.

in a state of panic i left Best Buy without buying any.

by now it should be obvious that my point is matt35mm was all-around right about The Wind Rises. today i didn't think about what bothered me from my past viewing. i'd wanted more fantasy elements, right? well okay but that's absurd when i think about it, because when i think The Wind Rises all i want to do is watch it again.