The Wind Rises (Film)

The Wind Rises (Japanese: Kaze Tachinu) is a narrative situated at the intersection of personal dreams, technical idealism, and historical tragedy. Inspired by the life of aircraft engineer Jiro Horikoshi and pivotal moments in modern Japanese history, the film does more than present a biographical story; it creates a multi-layered inquiry into the boundaries of aesthetic creation, ethical responsibility, love, death, and the concept of time. The narrative structure that blends reality with the imaginary renders the film a defining example in the director’s cinematic oeuvre, both formally and thematically.

^{The Wind Rises (}IMDb⁾

The film centers on the inner journey of young Jiro Horikoshi, whose desire to fly is thwarted by severe myopia, leading him to pursue aviation through engineering. His metaphorical dialogues with the Italian aircraft designer Caproni in his dreams serve both as a source of inspiration and a moral compass. Spanning from the 1920s to the 1940s, the narrative explores Japan’s modernization process against the backdrop of earthquakes, economic crises, and wartime preparations. Jiro’s aircraft design work at Mitsubishi gradually shifts toward military applications. The film presents the tension between Jiro’s pursuit of technical beauty and its eventual militaristic use as a structural conflict. His relationship with Nahoko Satomi introduces an emotional counterpoint to this technical and historical axis. Nahoko’s tuberculosis symbolizes the fragility of love and the transience of life. By the film’s end, although Jiro achieves technical success, he suffers a profound loss on a human and ethical level. The final dream sequence with Caproni reveals this conflict as an internal reckoning.

As the central character, Jiro embodies an engineer who unites technical idealism with aesthetic aspiration. The fact that his creations are ultimately used for destruction transforms him into a figure caught between beauty and ruin, dream and responsibility.

^{Jiro Horikoshi sketching (}The Wind Rises⁾

Nahoko is portrayed as a fragile and poetic figure who enters Jiro’s life. Despite her tuberculosis, she chooses to marry Jiro and remain with him, demonstrating personal resolve and self-sacrifice. Her character is structured as an embodiment of the aesthetic boundary between life and death.

^{Nahoko Satomi} (The Wind Rises)

Caproni, who appears in dream sequences, represents creative imagination while also serving as a reminder of ethical responsibility. His statement, “Airplanes are beautiful dreams, but dreams can also be madness,” forms the core of Jiro’s internal conflict throughout the film.

^{Giovanni Battista Caproni (1886–1957)} (The Wind Rises)

In the film, aeronautical engineering is not merely a backdrop but a foundational element of the narrative. The detailed depiction of aircraft assembly reflects deep attention and reverence for the technological process. Technical details such as fastener connections, stress distribution, and structural joints are rendered with precision through the language of animation. In flight sequences, aerodynamic effects, landing gear positioning, and fuselage-air interactions are portrayed by forging a connection between technical accuracy and aesthetic design. These scenes do not merely convey technical information; they also reflect the intellectual dimension behind flight and the emotional weight tied to the design process.

^{Most realistic depiction of aircraft internal structure} (The Wind Rises)

^{Internal wing structure} (The Wind Rises)

^{Technical representation of structural connection elements} (The Wind Rises⁾

^{Aircraft shell design was developed with aerodynamic conditions in mind.} (The Wind Rises)

The theme of “dreaming” in the film is treated both as a personal ideal and a societal dilemma. Jiro’s passion for flight eventually becomes enlisted in the service of wartime technology. This contradiction compels not only the character but also the viewer to enter an ethical questioning process. The coincidence between Nahoko’s death and the first flight of Jiro’s aircraft offers a critical space for reflection on the cost of creation.

While time in the film progresses linearly, dream sequences and internal scenes disrupt this linearity. Past, present, and imagined time are fluidly interwoven across scenes. Spaces are not only physical contexts but also carry symbolic meanings. Train stations, mountain towns, sanatoriums, and post-earthquake cityscapes are constructed as spatial manifestations of historical transformations and emotional fractures of the characters. Particularly, the dream sequences with Caproni exemplify metaphysical realms where time and space are suspended. These segments visually and narratively clarify the protagonist’s inner journey.

^{The Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1, 1923, measuring approximately 7.9 on the Richter scale, devastated a vast region including Tokyo and Yokohama, causing immense loss of life and property in Japanese history.} (The Wind Rises)

The film is designed with a color palette close to pastel tones. Natural elements—particularly the sky, wind, clouds, and water—are animated to reflect the characters’ psychological states. Aircraft depictions are technically detailed, while backgrounds are rendered more abstractly and fluidly. This contrast visually articulates the ideological tensions embedded in the film. Silence, minimal gestures, and glances emerge as primary narrative tools for conveying emotional states. In the earthquake scenes, formal distortions and structural transformations of sound are employed not to depict the physical event but to foreground its psychological impact.

^{The full spectrum of nature in Miyazaki’s animations} (The Wind Rises)

The film’s score was composed by Joe Hisaishi, who has long collaborated with Hayao Miyazaki. In this work, Hisaishi’s musical language is simpler and bears clearer influences from Western classical music than in his previous compositions. Piano and string instruments dominate, with melodies chosen to support the emotional tone of scenes and reflect the characters’ inner states. Particularly in sequences depicting Nahoko’s illness, music becomes an expressive medium that transcends verbal narration. Silence and ambient sounds also function as narrative elements. In dream and nature scenes, only bird calls, wind rustling, or mechanical noises are heard. During the earthquake scene, the shaking is represented not by natural sounds but by a metallic creaking. This choice reflects an aesthetic strategy that prioritizes the psychological impact over the physical reality of the event.

^{Joe Hisaishi (}nytimes⁾