The wind rises

The wind rises ï ¿½ Studio Ghibli

The appointment in Italian cinemas is for the days 13-14 - 15-16 September 2014, but in the US and Japan, Miyazaki's feature film (perhaps the latest according to the director) produced by Studio Ghibli was screened last year. Given the vast echo that Miyazaki's works usually have in Italy, a great success is also expected for this umpteenth animation where there is no lack of reflections on the human condition, on natural and man-made tragedies.

The narrative story opens on a young Jiro Horikoshi, a child with a severe form of myopia, who dreams of becoming a fighter pilot. Lying in his bed he dreams of flying on a very fast plane, but soon after the plane is attacked and crashes. Jiro wakes up. In another dream he meets Gianni Caproni, an Italian aeronautical engineer who suggests to him to build planes rather than pilot them, because the pilots almost never return. Jiro thus discovers his true calling and goes to study engineering in Tokyo. During the journey he meets a very young Nahoko Satomi, with whom he recites the famous phrases of the poet Paul Val ry, "The wind rises, we must try to survive", which will then be the true essence of the whole film.

Suddenly a great earthquake, that of Kanto in 1923, shatters fields, hills, houses. The train stops. People flee. Villages catch fire. Nahoko's maid injures her leg. Jiro sticks her limb or his compass and accompanies the two women to their village. The boy leaves without leaving any clues to track him down. Back in Tokyo he finds his institute on fire and colleagues trying to save the books. As emblematic as it is touching scene. The boy constantly applies himself in his studies, also neglecting the family, but it is worth it as it is an excellence. After his studies he went to work for Mitsubishi and later to Germany where he understood what Japanese fighters lack and how to improve their technologies. In the meantime, however, he witnesses a Gestapo raid, which compromises his permanence in Germany.

Jiro continues to apply himself incessantly at work until he gets a promotion thanks to which he will be able to design a fighter plane for the navy. However, the project fails. Jiro, dejected, goes to spend a few days of vacation in the isolated tourist resort of Karuizawa. While walking down a hillside path, a young girl paints under a parasol. At a certain point a rushing wind rises and the umbrella escapes the woman's grasp. A few meters below the young woman, in the same path where Jiro walks, the girl's father is found, but he cannot grab the umbrella which only hangs in Jiro's hands, who returns it to the man. In the hotel restaurant the two boys exchange some furtive glances. They meet at a source and Nahoko makes himself known, even if two years have passed, he wants to thank him for the time of the earthquake.

Nahoko is sick, suffers from tuberculosis, which is why she was in that holiday resort. The disease forces the girl to hospitalize in a sanatorium in the high mountains. Meanwhile, Jiro is persecuted by the police, for this he finds refuge with his super viewer Mr. Kurokawa. Nahoko takes a train and goes to Jiro, determined to spend the last few moments of her life with him. The two boys embrace again in an overly stereotyped scene at the station. Arriving at Kurokawa's house, they ask the two spouses to marry them. The boys, once united in marriage, can live together. But the woman gets worse, she needs to go back to the mountains, but she doesn't want to leave her husband. For his part, Jiro does not want to give up his ambitious projects.

On a visit from Kayo, Jiro's sister, who is now nearing her medical degree, he tells his brother that his wife's situation is really serious and that if he cares about her life, he must take her to the mountains immediately. Young spouses, however, do not change their decisions. Jiro then sets off to test his new prototype, the Mitsubishi A5M, an aircraft with surprising speed, the zero model will be the one used during the Pear Harbor attack. Jiro's dream is coming true. Nahoko, on the other hand, feeling that death is near, returned unbeknownst to everyone in the sanatorium in the mountains. In one last dream, Jiro meets Caproni once again, to whom he expresses his frustration. The finale reserves a scene with a high emotional content and a message of hope.

Also with this feature film Miyazaki plumbs the anxieties and errors of humanity, and does so with dark tones of gray, without ever exceeding and slipping into the tragic. The above are food for thought, input to reason on the worst mistakes of the human race. Perhaps a bit slow narrative, but full of suggestions and historical references of great precision.

	Original title:	Kaze Tachinu
	Country:	Japan
	Year:	2013
	Gender:	Entrainment
	Duration:	126 '
	Directed by:	Hayao Miyazaki
	Production:	Studio Ghibli
	Distribution:	Lucky Red
	Exit :	September 13, 2014 at the cinema

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