MovieChat Forums > Kaze tachinu (2014) Discussion > The love story kind of feels out of plac...

The love story kind of feels out of place for Japan.

posted 9 years ago by KatieMeluaLover
5 replies | jump to latest

Now, I gave this movie a 10 and I cried at the end, but the love story does seem out of place for 20th century Japan.

The idea that this upperclass company man at Mitsubishi was going home to an empty house, and not married in his early 30's while his company was priming him for a leadership role and letting him travel overseas is simply not based in the reality of Japanese life at ANY point in history, much less the early 20th century. His family would have arranged him a wife in(or maybe even before) College and if they failed to do so his Manager would have taken on that role as soon as he got to Mitsubishi in an attempt to keep with the norms of the time, to make him more loyal to the company, and to make him a better worker as even implied by his friend Honjo.

The fact that a love story, in this way, was developed almost made me feel like I was not even in 1930's Japan at all, but more like a western nation.

I know it was made up, and that the real Jiro was married and living with his two kids and mom by the time he was heavy in the design in the 30's, but it did come across as weird. Even Miyazaki, a man who has always had a respect for older Japanese customs and life, would be able to represent it in a much more realistic way.

[–] PreachCaleb 9 years ago

Even Miyazaki, a man who has always had a respect for older Japanese customs and life, would be able to represent it in a much more realistic way.

True. But Miyazaki is first and foremost a storyteller, not a historian.

Can't stop the signal.

[–] estocade 8 years ago

Good point. I can only guess, and I guess he is a new breed, sentimental, romantic, all his movies are, but also wise, over and beyond western ideals.

[–] pontevedro 8 years ago

I would add to this discussion that it's also clear that Mitsubishi, his supervisor, etc., all want Jiro to be married. And the reason for this is stated by Jiro's friend Honjo when he announces his own marriage - that a man cannot work effectively without a wife at home. (Or so they believe.) So I think Miyazaki was well aware of the points being made by the OP about Japanese culture in that era. (Indeed, how could he not be? He grew up in it.) He is taking dramatic license in order to present the romance as he wishes.

How old is Jiro when the romance takes place? In the movie, Jiro seems pretty young when he remeets Naoko at the hotel. His behavior at the hotel seems more like a man in his twenties than one in his thirties.

In real life, Jiro was in his thirties at the time he was thinking about the design that became the Zero. So I'd say that Miyazaki has taken some dramatic license here as well.

But I also think Miyazaki is rejecting the conventional view outlined by the OP. If the company were choosing a wife for Jiro, they certainly would not have selected someone with a serious case of tuberculosis. That does not make for a well settled home life. As portrayed in the movie, though, I think Naoko is essential to spur Jiro on to the creative burst that results in the Zero.

I also am not clear about how long Jiro and Naoko are together. It seems like a very short time in the movie (months perhaps), but the time between where Jiro was in aircraft design when he went to the hotel and the test flight of the Zero prototype was probably years.

Perhaps Naoko is just another of Jiro's dreams, along with Caproni. . . He could have read Tetsuo Hori's novel "The Wind is Risen" (published about 1937, I think) about the time that he was working on the Zero and his imagination took off.

[–] yeti_chic 7 years ago

I think the relationship in the film was in part based on physicist Richard Feynman's marriage to his first wife, Arline. He was 27, she 25, when she died from tuberculosis. They were high school sweethearts, and his family was not supportive of his marrying her, because they were afraid he'd contract it. He married her anyway, because he adored her and wanted to take care of her. Lots on the internet about them, as well as covered in a few books.

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[–] pontevedro 7 years ago

Perhaps, but the acknowledged inspiration for that aspect of the film is Tatsuo Hori's story "Kaze Tachinu" which is said to be about a female character with TB in a sanatarium in Japan. Hori himself suffered from TB.