Poor man’s The Good Shepherd: I somehow found this slower and less interesting than the profoundly boring fake story about how the CIA started in the US.

★★☆☆☆

Before we start on this film review, we need to have a discussion about biopics. I love biopics. If there’s a genre that has my absolute forgiveness, it would be biopics. I liked Lincoln. In fact, I own Lincoln. No one owns Lincoln. When I was a kid you had to fill out a card to rent movies at the library. I rented Gandhi more than any other member of the Hudson Library.

The reason I love biopics is because they do two things: First, they inspire you to be better than you are. Schindler’s List shows that even amidst tragedy, there are people who will strive to do the right thing. Second, they give you insight into a fascinating person. Amadeus lets you live with Mozart and experience life from his perspective. A word about accuracy: I have no problem with filmmakers taking some license with a true story. The whole point is to take an amazing person or story and try to teach or show others by using the story. If a director rearranges the timeline of events or changes details to make the story dramatic, it’s ok. My example will be Remember the Titans. In the final game, the Titans win. In real life, it was a landslide. In the movie, it’s on a last ditch hail mary play. I have no problem with this. My caveat is that if I do some research afterward and find that there is some massive difference between real life and the movie, vastly changing the message or person, then I won’t be happy. Check out the real story of Rudy if you’d like an example.

This week Josh assigned me The Wind Rises. This film is Hayao Miyazaki’s final film before his retirement. Miyazaki is a big deal in Japanese animated film, which I don’t much care for. I’ve seen Spirited Away, but I don’t think I got the point. I watched the dubbed version because I’m not a stickler and because Joseph Gordon-Levitt voices the main character. The plot is this: There is a man named Jiro who really wants to make airplanes. So he studies to be an aeronautical engineer in Tokyo, then he gets a job building airplanes, then he builds airplanes. Also, along the way he makes a few friends and gets married. This is unimportant to the plot. The one thing I pulled from the movie was that Jiro’s drive to ignore everything in his life in order to design airplanes was pretty impressive. Overall, not my movie.

These are things I really liked about the movie: The animation is beautiful. It is truly enjoyable to see, with vibrant colors and powerful imagery. The dialogue felt really accurate. I’m an engineer and it felt like a day at the office. A common pitfall of biopics is spoonfed plot lines, but this film doesn’t give you anything. Maybe Jiro is a big deal in Japan, but they don’t tell you anything about him. Apparently, he designed the Zero! Possibly the most recognizable plane from WWII! WHY DIDN’T THE MOVIE MENTION THIS?! THE WORD ZERO IS NEVER UTTERED! I HAD TO LEARN THIS FROM WIKIPEDIA! Another thing I learned from Wikipedia: Jiro was strongly opposed to the war. This is mentioned in the movie, but not explored in the slightest. So opposed, that when he saw the destruction of Nagoya, he lost interest in airplanes. I would totally watch a movie about a aeronautical engineer, building airplanes for the military who is strongly opposed to the war. That would make an amazing conflict. Instead I got a slow story about an engineer who works too hard and ignores his wife.

There is one other thing about the movie’s plot I want to discuss, but it’s a spoiler, so skip this paragraph if you’d like. In the film, Jiro’s wife has tuberculosis. But Jiro and his wife love each other so much that they want to be together. Also, Jiro loves airplanes so much there is no way he will make a single damn sacrifice for his sick, dying wife. She leaves the hospital, lives in a stranger’s house, and stays up late for Jiro, who works ridiculous hours, never seeing her. Then she dies alone while Jiro is at work. By the way, this entire plot line is fabricated. Jiro’s wife did not have tuberculosis and he had children and he apparently was a good father too. I am disappointed.

Overall, I did not like this movie. I found the plot boring, except for the parts that were totally made up.  Jiro wasn’t a strong or interesting character to me, and nothing he did in the movie was really worth watching. Since I don’t have much history with Miyazaki (except for disliking Spirited Away), I approached this movie as a biopic, and on that basis I can’t recommend this movie. I know it’s highly rated, but it wasn’t for me.

The Wind Rises isn’t available anywhere online, but if you have a friend like Josh he probably owns it.

Next week Josh will be reviewing Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Josh mentioned he hasn’t seen many Steve Martin films and this one has the added bonus of Michael Caine! Yay!