Hayao Miyazaki's Least-Known Movie is a Perfect Companion for Oppenheimer

Summary

• Christopher Nolan 's Oppenheimer has become one of the top anti-war films of 2023.
• Its story focuses deeply on the personal experience of creating the atomic bomb and its moral consequences.
• Ten years before Oppenheimer, Hayao Miyazaki released a historical drama with similar themes.

Hayao Miyazaki's legendary oeuvre is often characterized by an attempt to transcend dichotomies such as nature and technological progress, unruly chaos and authoritarian order, actions and their consequences, dreams and reality. Of course, for a man who spent the early years of his life under the harsh conditions of World War II, these ideas are inextricably linked to the anti-war rhetoric that permeates every one of his films, even those that seem to have nothing to do with militarism.

This is particularly evident in his most recent work for Ghibli, the 2023 animated film The Boy and the Heron. But ten years before that, another fascinating anti-military film was released, telling the life of a brilliant inventor whose naive dreams of high-tech progress collided with the harsh reality of the consequences of unethical exploitation of technology for military purposes. And many deaths.

Yes, it sounds like the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, but this is the tragedy of Japanese engineer Jiro Horikoshi. His story was dramatized by Miyazaki as part of The Wind Rises, an animated film that would be the perfect ideological complement to Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer.

How the Dream of Flying Led to Sorrow and Death

Probably one of the most recognizable aircraft of World War II is the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, famous as an effective dogfighter flown by the infamous kamikazes who made suicide missions. This particular type of aircraft was one of the most common in the Pacific and 43 of them participated in the infamous attack on Pearl Harbor.

The designer of the Zero was Mitsubishi's Chief Engineer Jiro Horikoshi, a brilliant young man whose dream was far from perfect military killing machines. Inspired by the famous Italian aeronautical engineer Giovanni Battista Caproni, Jiro dreamed of conquering the skies in aircraft of his own design. In general, he believed that flight was the most important technological achievement of mankind, capable of stimulating social progress.

But only on the wave of militarization of society in Imperial Japan under Emperor Showa, Jiro Horikoshi turned out to be a typical product of fascist propaganda. At first, he didn't care that his inventions would cost many people their lives. Unfortunately, after the war, the consequences of his contribution to the development of Japanese aviation haunted Jiro for the rest of his life.

The Price Does Not Justify the Means

Arguably, the weight of Horikoshi's guilt is not comparable to that of Oppenheimer, which cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians and still poses a deadly threat to all of humanity. Nevertheless, Horikoshi is no less than an American theoretical physicist, influenced by collective bloodlust and blinding patriotic ideals to convince himself of the necessity of the price he pays for scientific progress.

Without absolving either Horikoshi or Oppenheimer of responsibility, both films convey the profound tragedy of their fates. For both were simply dreamy idealists of remarkable intelligence and faith in humanity, whose dreams were exploited by war-hungry states.

What distinguishes The Wind Rises from Oppenheimer, however, is that Miyazaki ends with an uplifting perspective on self-forgiveness and the ability to let go of the attachments that poison our souls. Although Jiro realizes in the finale that he will forever be responsible for the deaths of strangers, he also realizes how beautiful the planes are now in the hands of humanity. Of course, this is a very controversial position, but Miyazaki, an incredible humanist, continues to teach us compassion and forgiveness as the only way to avoid wars.