In hindsight, however, “The Wind Rises” is just as clearly a film about why he’ll never be able to just put down his pencil and walk away forever — not when using it is the only way he knows how to draw air into his lungs.
Miyazaki has always been obsessed with aeronautics, but he’s been just as consumed by various kinds of corruption, including that of his family at the hands of a workaholic father. Yes, “The Wind Rises” is a three-hankie melodrama that empathizes with a man who conceived of killing machines, but it’s one that Miyazaki devastatingly reframes into the story of someone struggling to justify their art in a world eager to condemn even its most beautiful dreams as weapons of war. At the time of its release, I was convinced that this bittersweet personal statement was too perfect a swansong for Miyazaki to bother making another film. In hindsight, however, “The Wind Rises” is just as clearly a film about why he’ll never be able to just put down his pencil and walk away forever — not when using it is the only way he knows how to draw air into his lungs. “The wind is rising!” the poet said. “We must try to live.” —DE