Can Love and Perfection Overcome earthquake, tuberculosis and the Evils of World War 2?

Are you sick of the same old computer generated violence that Hollywood continues to serve up movie after movie? Even the Hobbit (a children’s book) could not avoid Hollywood’s lust for violence. If so then you should not go pass Hayao Miyazaki’s animated movie “The Wind Rises”.  The Wind Rises is a fictionalised account of Jiro Horikosh – the designer of the famous A6M Zero. The A6M is a fighter aircraft. In the Second World War, a fighter plane serves two purposes: It can defend ones territory from enemies’ bombers or to protect one own bombers in their mission to bomb the enemy.  As one is drawn into Miyazaki’s story, one realises that this is an anti-war movie. I do have more to say on this question but this is first and foremost a review of Miyazaki’s creative ability. My concern for Miyazaki’s treatment of Japan’s responsibility for the war will come later.

Right from the start Miyazaki uses one of Jiro’s many dream sequences (the animation is vibrantly beautiful) to help the audience become familiar with Jiro’s passion for flying and plane design. Not only that, Miyazaki uses the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 (where Jiro rescues his future wife) and the great depression of the early 1930s to bring out Jiro’s selfless nature.  Growing up with a diet of Godzilla, Ultraman and Japanese animation it is really refreshing to see that Miyazaki’s can use animation to weave together these historical events to build up Jiro’s story.  It would be so easy for Miyazaki to simply dazzle his audience with more and more animation so as to turn his movie into yet another Hollywood feel good cartoon. Instead Jiro the genius aeroplane designer not only dreams of setback but is also plague by real setback that nearly cost the life of one of his pilot. Just when the audience think that life cannot get worse, we found that the love of Jiro’s life Naoko suffers from tuberculosis and will soon die.  To be honest, my eyes were getting quite wet by this stage. However Miyazaki wants his audience to see through all these failures, sadness, and even the evils of World War 2. Why? It is because nothing was going to dampen Jiro’s passion to build the prefect aeroplane.  Naoko rather than demanding Jiro’s complete attention instead left her sanatorium to be with Jiro. Jiro in turn married Naoko even though he knew Naoko’s tuberculosis would mean their time together would be short.  It is this sacrificial love that Jiro and Naoko have for one another that makes it all worthwhile.

It all sound so wonderful doesn’t it? Even though Miyazaki’s Jiro is not the real Jiro, we do know love can do much more than even what Miyazaki can imagine. Why? It is because we have seen the Cross.

Finally one question that I realise cannot be bypassed.  Yes, Miyazaki did point to the futility of war but did he do enough to question Japan’s responsibility? At the start of the war, the Zero out manoeuvre all Allies fighters.  In this way, Japan was able establish air superiority wherever they went. In the city of Hong Kong (where I was born), the Japanese bombers were able to drop bombs on the Kai Tak airport with impunity.  Hong Kong had no hope of defending itself and had to live under Japanese oppression for three years and eight months. As an engineer, I realised that whatever I design or built, it too can be used for evil. On the other hand even Mikhail Kalashnikov, the inventor of the AK47 also had to ponder about the damage that his invention had caused.  Kalashnikov was so troubled that he sought spiritual advice from the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church.