風立ちぬ – Kaze Tachinu (which is the name of Miyazaki’s film in Japanese) is also the name of a short story written by Tatsuo Hori in 1937, and this fictional story, about a woman in a tuberculosis sanatorium, is an integral part of the tale Miyazaki wishes to tell. Jiro’s story provides the framework through which Miyazaki weaves an epic tale, a powerful metaphor and the story of a courageous young girl. Yet that description barely touches the surface of the film. Rather than an invented story, the film is based on the biography of Jiro Horikoshi (1903 – 1982), who designed the fighter aircraft used by Japan during World War II: the Mitsubishi A5M and Mitsubishi A6M Zero. In Miyazaki’s films the world he depicts is not without pain or peril, but it is a world in which even the most ordinary and outwardly vulnerable protagonists show great courage, it is a world that admits the possibility of tenderness.Īt first glance, The Wind Rises seems to differ from Miyazaki’s previous films. Princess Mononoke (1997) was his first film to awaken widespread international interest, and Spirited Away (2001) was the first anime film to win an American Academy Award. Miyazaki – the animator, manga artist, storyteller, film director, writer, producer and co-founder of Studio Ghibli, has created imaginative and beautifully detailed stories and worlds that seem to exist in a genre of their own. il faut tenter de vivre!” The wind rises, we must try to live.

Drawn to the peaceful promise of the grave and the vast ocean of immortality, the poet turns away, his spirit revived by the winds, calling out: “Le vent se lève!.

Hayao Miyazaki’s last film, The Wind Rises, takes its title from a line in Paul Valéry’s poem Le cimetière marin. It is a call to action, a place for beginnings, rather than farewells.

風立ちぬ [Kaze tachinu] by Tatsuo Hori