This movie is beautiful and haunting and makes me cry everytime. I haven't seen all of Miyazaki's films (I sure intend to), but from the comments that I've read around imdb this seems to be one of the least appreciated ones. Is it because his more epic films (like Nausicaa) are more in-line with the genre that Miyazaki's fanbase is interested in?
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It is the least appreciated on my list too. And I rated it a 9. It's just that I expected something different from Miyazaki, something in tone with his earlier works. I expected a very good magical and thematic movie and I got a very good blunt and realistic movie.
shareI think it's probably because it's his most realistic movie. No real fantasy elements like his other works.
Let's be bad guys.
Perhaps other Miyazaki fans were waiting for a fantasy addition to an airplane designer story? Perhaps. I really like it as well, Miyazaki never made a bad film if this is indeed his last. I didn't mind it being a little more realistic than previous ones.
shareTo be honest, I feel like most of the criticism I've heard about the movie (aside from the actual war-related concerns) are simply people saying, "I have a short attention span, and I am easily bored." It's a gorgeous movie, and, while it lacks the fantasy elements (and action) found in most of Miyazaki's films, it's based on an actual person in the real world - an imaginative man with a fascination for engineering and flight, so one can see why his story would resonate with Hayao Miyazaki - who's also an imaginative man with a fascination for engineering and flight. As a creative mind and builder, there aren't many figures in Japan who stand taller than Jiro Horikoski. A comparison would be along the lines of Tesla or Frank Lloyd Wright. One wouldn't go to see a biographic film about one of them and complain about it being too slow (at least not if one wanted their opinion to be taken seriously). People just went into this movie expecting and wanting "Spirited Away", "Princess Mononoke", or "My Neighbor Totoro", so they'd basically signed up for disappointment in advance, but that's pretty much their own fault, not the film's.
For what it's worth, you should make an effort to see "The Grave of the Fireflies" - an early film from Studio Ghibli, though Miyazaki was not directly involved with it. It's another semi-biographic war-time film, and it's amazing. Though I'd also recommend the lighter and more magical stuff Studio Ghibli has produced.
His last film had to be grounded in reality to achieve the metaphor he was looking for. It's really about his film studio.
I couldn't believe when I read his filmography that he played a toilet (no joke) in According to Jim