Hayao Miyazaki's fascination with flying has been well-documented in many of his prior and future works. From broomsticks to talking birds, this legendary director has left his indelible mark on flight and air travel like no other. This is what brings me to his aeronautical masterpiece, The Wind Rises.
This film, at face value, might seem like a man, obsessed with flying and building aircraft. However, it really documents the power of a person's drive to create. How far will you go to bring something to life? Even if the world suffers for it. The beauty of creation lies in the finality of its consequences.
Oppenheimer is the same way. A man driven to understand the "new physics" of the world and bring it to America. It's a story about J. Robert Oppenheimer, a man who is driven to create a device that will forever change the world. The consequences, are seen in The Wind Rises as Jiro Horikoshi, the protagonist, shows us through his eyes the devastating effects of war. These two films draw such opposing parallels when it comes to the subject of war.
In The Wind Rises, Hayao Miyazaki who is himself an outspoken critic of wars shows us the desolation and destruction of war and even its effect on the people. This doesn't however stop him from romanticising the creation of the aircraft that Jiro is working to build. An aircraft that ended up becoming one of the deadliest ever used at that time.
Christopher Nolan however, based the story of Oppenheimer on the book American Prometheus which depicted J. Robert Oppenheimer as the main character of his own story and so it was a skewed, singular perspective from which we the audience get to see. While the film does provide the audience with more than a single perspective through the black-and-white scenes with Lewis Strauss, this film is more on the victory of the Americans and Oppenheimer's tragic realisation than it is on the war itself.
This brings us to the central theme of both these films. Obsession. There is not, nor has there ever been a more powerful force in the world than obsession. The need to build the object of their obsession. Both Jiro and Oppenheimer have that in common. Two sides of the same coin. A mirror on both sides of the war. A waltz of destruction through creation.
These two Prometheuses have their own mentors and peers. Jiro Horikoshi has his repeated dream meetings with the famous Italian engineer, Gianni Caproni who is both an inspiration and a voice of caution to Jiro's lofty goals and obsessions.
Oppenheimer has Einstien, a man who discovered the world of new physics that he now seeks to embrace. A constant voice of caution, Einstien's role in this film is unmistakably the same as Gianni Caproni's in The Wind Rises.
Love. Love is the very companion of obsession. Both Jiro and Oppenheimer experience the pull of love in their lives. Jiro and Oppenheimer both make decisions that allow them to continue pursuing this obsession of theirs. Oppenheimer decides to send his child away due to both his wife's problems but also more due to the fact he needs to be free from these attachments in order to finish his project. It is the unspoken nature of prioritization that speaks to Oppenheimer's character.
Jiro isn't too different as his wife holds his hand and suffers from the devastating effects of tuberculosis, he still continues working on his plane as if it is the first priority. This is in no way vilifying these two characters, but rather an attempt to illustrate the way they prioritise their obsessions over all else, despite the consequences.
It is that very moral ambiguity that both directors refuse to explain or take a stand on. The truly great films are the ones that pose questions and allow the audience to fill in the gaps. Both Oppenheimer and The Wind Rises are testaments to that fact.
Mohnish Rajakumaran is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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