Some people have argued that the film glosses over Japan’s role in World War II and paints the Nazi-allied nation as a victim rather than a perpetrator, but others point towards the latent guilt that Miyazaki has drawn into every scene of a film that reflects upon the volatile relationship between the purity of our dreams and the violence required for them to become real.
A (heavily fictionalized and composited) biopic of the Japanese engineer who designed the A6M Zero fighter jets that were used to attack Pearl Harbor, “The Wind Rises” isn’t just the only movie that Miyazaki has ever made about a real person, it’s also such a raw and revealing look at the true cost of artistic creation that it doubles as a devastatingly bittersweet self-portrait. Some people have argued that the film glosses over Japan’s role in World War II and paints the Nazi-allied nation as a victim rather than a perpetrator, but others point towards the latent guilt that Miyazaki has drawn into every scene of a film that reflects upon the volatile relationship between the purity of our dreams and the violence required for them to become real.