Joe on film: 'The Wind Rises'

Web exclusive: Film critic Joe O’Shansky on the latest from Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki and other cinematic tidbits.

Sometimes old men get nostalgic. Which, depending on what they feel nostalgia for, could be a bad thing. For all the greatness Akira Kurosawa gave the world of cinema, from “The Seven Samurai” to “Dersu Uzala,” the fawning nostalgia of his swan song film, “Madadayo,” has the effect of watching bonsai grow.

Sure, tradition and culture are the foundation of life, but you can only go so far with a film about an old man who is well-liked by everyone until he eventually dies. The principal conflict is that he loses his cat at one point, and it’s sad.

Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki, who for all of his international influence has become thought of as the Kurosawa of animation, has been saying “madadayo” (which means “not yet”) to retirement for a few years. Now it appears that his latest, “The Wind Rises,” will, in fact, be his final film. Fortunately, while Miyazaki leaves the fantastical behind for the historical on his final flight, his sense of whimsy and dream-like storytelling remain joyfully the same.

Jiro (voiced in the American iteration by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a boy living in a rural Japanese province during World War I. He is enamored of airplanes. After a dream where he meets the famed Italian plane designer Giovanni Caproni, Jiro decides to fashion his life after his hero and design the most advanced aircraft ever built. Years of study later, during the eye of the storm before the onset of WWII, Jiro is assigned to a design team tasked with building state-of-the-art fighter planes. The ensuing years find him hard at work testing his designs in competition with other teams, which fail for one reason or another. Meanwhile, the Fascists assume more and more power in Europe. Eventually Jiro marries his sweetheart, Nahoko (Emily Blunt). But he never forgets Caproni’s phantom words: “Airplanes are beautiful dreams.”

Miyazaki is essentially Jiro, though instead of constructing aircraft he turned his talents to meticulously engineered animation. Indeed, the themes of “The Wind Rises” are well worn in his past work, from “Castle in the Sky” to “Porco Rosso” to “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.” Here, though, the essential difference is that he’s celebrating the grandiosity of aviation alongside the rise of the Japanese empire while utilizing all the dreaminess of his past fantasy films. There’s an ominous undertone that the film carries within its reverence for those technological advances that is difficult to ignore. Despite the clear tone of regret in the coda for what destruction those advances wrought, there’s also a sense optimism that is, frankly, haunting.

But it’s all beautifully rendered, complex, and a slice of life from a different time and world that enchants in that way only Miyazaki can. “The Wind Rises” is yet another masterwork from a man whose career is full of them, that proves he has lost none of the fire. That it’s Miyazaki’s last will have you wishing he’d say “not yet”.

Bi-Weekly Bits

Springfield ’61 // Local comedy troupe and TU alumnus Narrative Imperative will premiere its feature-length, comedy debut “Springfield ’61” tonight at the Circle Cinema. The film follows a group of friends who escape the drudgery of their regular jobs by playing in a rock band. When the get an invite to open a music fest they embark on a road trip that presumably changes their lives.

Neighbors // This new Nick Stoller comedy (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) finds Seth Rogan and Rose Byrne as a couple with a new-born baby living next door to a frat house (its president, Zac Efron). Hilarity ensues.. Given these talents and glowing early reviews, everything appears to bode well for this one. And it’s probably better than the 1981 “Neighbors” that killed John Belushi. We’ll see. Opens 5/9/2014 everywhere.

Only Lovers Left Alive // Indie wunderkind Jim Jarmusch is back with his take on vampirism which, if it weren’t him behind the camera, would probably only inspire my indifference. Just so done with vampires. But it is Jarmusch, along with Tom Hiddleston (Loki of “The Avengers”) and Tilda Swinton, so really this could be about basket-weaving hemophiliacs and I’d still be excited to see it. Open 5/16/2014 at AMC Southroads.