The Wind Rises in The Book of Judgement

Miyazaki's magnum opus, it's not one for the fantasy action crowd thats for sure, and to most it'll probably come across as a simple biopic of Jiro Horikoshi, the fella who designed the zero, but I took it to be a rather sweet and bitter sweet fading trumpet blast to the death of elegance and purity in our aesthetics in the name of industrialism and utility.

Simplicity and grace vs function and advancement are standard themes from Ghibli and Miyazaki and this is something quintessential to his work, and indeed to this story of Japan as it struggles through conflict and depression and, as it saw it, a forward modern nation.

The animation is, as always, sublime and the score, soft and lovely and they do a fantastic job of incorporating vox into the sfx, and making dramatic events all the more real with the use of human voices.

It doesn't stick to fact, but it never intends too, all the planes are real (yes even the huge one) and the engineering aspect is pretty awesome, he captures the people pretty well, especially given the rather grim subject and eventual outcomes, the uses of the beautiful things they dream off.

I watched it with some pretty poor subs, so make sure you get a decent copy.