I did not expect to be writing a new blog post so quickly, but last night, I watched what is undeniably my new favorite movie, and I couldn’t help but write down my initial thoughts to preserve them for future reference. The movie is The Wind Rises, a Studio Ghibli film directed by Hayao Miyazaki with score composed by the legendary Joe Hisashi. It documents the life of Jiro Horikoshi, an aeronautical engineer of great prowess and his life on the front lines of aerospace development in WWII Japan. The movie brings some elements from the life of the real Jiro Horikoshi as well as the fictional romance from the biographical novel, The Wind Has Risen from Tatsuo Hori.

I had been meaning to watch this movie for a long time because I heard the quote that inspired the title (below), and its simplicity and elegance held me in continuous desire to interpret. Having started the movie last night at 11:08 PM, I was surprised when the movie ended that not only was I awake, but I was more awake than when I had started.

The wind is rising! We must try to live! - Paul Valéry, French poet and essayist (Translated)

summary#

In 1918, nearsighted Jiro Horikoshi, unable to become a pilot, is inspired by a magazine to pursue aircraft design. He begins dreaming of Italian designer Giovanni Battista Caproni, who tells him building planes is greater than flying them and has never flown himself. By 1923, Jiro is an aeronautical engineering student at Tokyo Imperial University. Traveling home, he meets Nahoko Satomi and helps carry her injured maid Kinu to safety after the Great Kantō earthquake, leaving before names are exchanged.

Graduating in 1925 alongside friend Kiro Honjo, both join Mitsubishi during the Great Depression. Their first assignment — perfecting the 1MF9 fighter for the Imperial Army — ends in failure when the plane breaks apart mid-test. Sent to Weimar Germany in 1929 to license the Junkers G.38 bomber design, they’re blocked by the secret police from obtaining full plans. Honjo stays on to develop the G4M; Jiro returns to Japan, both disheartened by Japan’s technological gap.

In 1932, Jiro is made chief designer for a Navy fighter competition, but his 1MF10 is rejected in 1933. Vacationing in Karuizawa, he reunites with a grown Nahoko, and they fall quickly in love, aided by a German tourist named Castorp, who warns Jiro that Hitler has imprisoned Junkers for resisting Nazism and that a Germany-Japan alliance will lead to another world war — before fleeing arrest by the Special Higher Police.

When Nahoko is diagnosed with tuberculosis, Jiro gets her father’s blessing to marry her. She insists on waiting until she recovers and returns to her family. Jiro, now wanted for his association with Castorp, hides at supervisor Kurokawa’s home while working on a new Navy fighter. A pulmonary hemorrhage brings him briefly to Nahoko’s side, after which she leaves the sanatorium to be with him. Kurokawa and his wife facilitate their quiet marriage at home, with her father’s approval. Jiro’s sister Kayo, a doctor, warns him the marriage will end in tragedy — tuberculosis is incurable. Despite her worsening condition, the couple cherish their time together.

When Jiro departs for the test flight of his new prototype, the Ka-14, Nahoko secretly leaves farewell letters and slips away, attempting to return to the sanatorium. At the test site, a sudden gust of wind signals her death.

In 1945, after Japan’s defeat, Jiro dreams of Caproni once more, lamenting that his planes were used for war. Caproni reassures him that his dream of beautiful aircraft was fulfilled — his masterpiece being the legendary A6M Zero. Nahoko’s spirit appears to urge him to live on, before Jiro and Caproni walk together into their kingdom of dreams.

thoughts#

For context, before I watched this movie, my favorite movie was Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, followed by Tenet, Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse and Captain America: The Winter Soldier in no particular order. While the plots of the latter movies are relatively weaker than the plots of the former movies, they are all rich with multi-linear narratives, with twists and turns in the plot, with heavy stakes and heavier fantastical elements. By contrast, this movie was nowhere near my traditional moviewatch.

The reason I fell in love with this movie was because, in a sentence, Jiro Horikoshi is the character I find myself relating to in every aspect. And I think that on a fundamental level, we should all be able to relate to Jiro. His fundamental struggle throughout the movie is balancing the responsibility of his life, the expectations of the world, and the innocence with which he pursues his career. Jiro’s want to build planes to hold passengers and not guns is akin to my want to build AI that can be used, not to generate Fruit Love Island videos, but to help advance medicine, robotics, and raise the standard of education around the world. It is this primitive desire to build planes to pass his joy of flying to the world that keeps him human in the face of piles of money, even as the world starves.

Jiro’s care of Nahoko is beautiful. Their relationship We can all relate to sidelining our purpose to being there for people we love, and this movie plays with the tension of having to choose between responsibilities so well. The final scenes, where Jiro and Nahoko mutually agree to spend Nahoko’s last moments apart, Jiro flying the Ka-14 and Nahoko returning to the sanatorium. There is no grief - they are each acting in their cosmic purpose, and there is stability in that belief.

The cinematography and animation was beautiful. I loved the use of bright color palettes for most of the movie - the sadness of the story contrasted strongly with the visual representations Jiro walked through. Through the movie, I was reminded of the need to romanticize the little things in life - even as the world ends, there is beauty in birds chirping and in the sky’s deep blue color. Even as the world ends, there are sunsets and sunrises.

And the score - as always, Joe Hisashi made me cry. While the score for this movie isn’t my favorite (that goes to Kiki’s Delivery Service), it was so wonderful in its motifs of passion, and love, and tragedy. With Joe Hisashi’s music in this movie (particularly all the A Journey (XYZ) tracks, as well as *Nahoko (I Miss You)), I felt how I do when I’m writing code, arguing a new thesis, or presenting on my work. It was another part of this experience that brought me closer to the burden of the protagonist.

Jiro’s connection to mentor figures in this movie is strong, and this movie justifies how important it is to have mentors who support the innocence of your passion. Caproni, his idol, the one who presents him with Paul Valéry’s lines from the poem, is Jiro’s connection to the innocent passion that this movie prioritizes. Castorp, his mentor in the the real world, nurtures that passion further in the face of Japan’s Special Higher Police. Both mentors re-emphasize the importance of “trying to live” - when the wind rises, now more than ever is the time to try to live.

q.e.d.#

I definitely used the word “beauty” in some capacity one too many times, and hopefully this was at least somewhat coherent. If you have the time, now more than ever, watch this movie. I am confident I’ll be reflecting on it for a long, long time and I’m grateful to have seen the world through this film’s eyes. Now more than ever, as movements innocent in their genesis get funded with the intent to use them for violence, depression, and selfish gain, it is important for us to remember that we are not alone in this struggle. Yes, much is expected of our generation, but much is also given to our generation. We must use these gifts and prioritize the emotions that brought us to the fields we want to be in as the world grows more materialistic.

To pour your soul into creation is beautiful — but beauty alone cannot absolve us of what we build. It is our love for the work itself — not duty, not ambition — that keeps us human when the stakes are highest.

- Karthik