We Must Try to Live

Two weeks ago, we saw Hayao Miyazaki’s last film “The Wind Rises.”  It is, in many ways, the most unique of Miyazaki’s prolific career.  If you have seen anything else (Spirited Away, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, to name a few) by Miyazaki, the obvious expectation is something set in an out-of-this-world, fantastic universe, with magical creatures or spirits or witches.  Even Ponyo and Princess Mononoke, both actually set in “real world” Japan, featured mystical spirits and talking animals.  The Wind Rises has none of that.  Other than some magical dream sequences, there’s not really a hint of magic.  But even in its real-world trappings, The Wind Rises is nothing if not magical.

Set before, during, and after World War II, the film tells the story of an aspiring aeronautical engineer, who wants to make the world a better place but is forced to create the next great figher plane for Japan’s war efforts.  I won’t really retell more of the plot than I have to, but the whole film centers on a translated french quote: Le vent se leve, il faut tenter de vivre: translated as “The wind rises, we must try to live (though more literally the wind rises, I must try living) from Paul Valery’s poem “The Cemetary by the Sea.”   It seems to me that the entire film is a sort of meditation on that line.   It’s a movie about war without being a war movie: in many ways, it offers a frank, anti-japanese-government-but-pro-japanese take on WWII that doesn’t surface very much in the US.   But the point never quite seems to be about politics. 

Because it’s a Miyazaki movie, you could just mute it and be dazzled by the animation: this time, he shows his expertise at animating the flight, the wind, and all of its effects.  But because it is a Miyazaki film, all of that visual splendor affects the film’s artistry beyond its dazzling shots and animation. 

The wind rises, and it is beautiful when it does.  But there is always a crash or a landing: but even a landing is an end to the flight.  As a film about an engineer, Jiro, there’s a certain sadness, even to his success.  The planes are meant to kill people, even though that is never what their creator wanted, it was the only way he could express his creativity.  There is no other option for Jiro: he has to create planes because it is the purpose of his life.  There’s no other option: the film is not even a meditation on determinism: it’s just that simple: Jiro exists to create planes, even if they are figther planes for a war he doesn’t want.  The wind rises.  He must try to live.  If it weren’t for the wind, there could be no flight.  If it weren’t for the war, there could be no outlet for his creativity.  The wind rises, so he must try to live.

At a point in the movie, Jiro falls in love with a woman who is terminally ill: but they are in love, so they must marry and make it work as much as they can: the wind rises, they must try to live.  It’s simply that basic: there are things in life they can control: their marriage and life in it, and things in life they can’t: both that they love each other and that she is dying.  That’s the dualism of the film: the wind rises, and we must try to live despite it.  But if it weren’t for the wind, there would be no flight, no planes, no life as Jiro knows and needs it (and, without putting much more plot into this, know that, were it not for the wind, Jiro would have never met his eventual wife). 

I’m not one much for message movies as such.  Just look at my post about the Oscars: 12 Years a Slave and Philomena were, to me, vastly overrated because of their message.  But I am not opposed to a film having a message: actually, I think any work of art probably does in some way, if it is truly a work of actual artistic expression. 

Hayao Miyazaki is one of the greatest living cinéartistes: it is no surprise that all of his films are high art in one way or another.  Though not may favorite of his work (Spirited Away is a masterpiece among masterpieces), The Wind Rises may be his most poignant film.  It has a clear message, in that “the wind rises, we must try to live” but it never tells you what that means: it shows you what it means.  That is great art.  Jiro’s life is a story of overcoming obstacles, but at the end of the film, it’s not as if he’s some kind of champion engineer living happily ever after.  At the end of the film, Jiro’s career is over, most of his planes have been destroyed (“that’s what happens when you lose a war” one of the characters says): but for what it was, while it was, Jiro can only say thank you for all he had, even if he has nothing to show for it now.  The wind rose, he lived.  It’s not about the end result for Jiro, it’s about how he lived while the wind was rising.  Like the planes he built, they either crashed or landed, but none of them flew forever.  For 35 years, Miyazaki rode the wind too.  Though most would, by all accounts, call him a huge success with plentty to show for it, it seems he cherishs the memories of the act of creation most, if we are to take any of The Wind Rises as a message from him.  (and it’s impossible not to, seriously). 

In that regard, The Wind Rises is appropriately unAmerican.  It’s not about the end result, it’s not about winning or losing.  It is about living while the wind is rising, succeed or fail.  Wars, disease, loss of loved ones, unintended and adverse goals set by authorities beyond our control all come in life: and they meet parts of us we can’t help: the temperment we’ve been given, the skills, talents, ideas, the people we love, the families we have: they all come together, the wind rises and falls with all of them.  But it’s the attempt to live within all of that, while we’ve still got the chance, that matters most.

None of The Wind Rises ever says any of that.  The entire film shows all of it.

 

-Zack