Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises has been met with great critical acclaim by awards voters so far this season, fitting for the legendary director's final film, but it's also been the subject of a great deal of controversy. The story largely follows the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the Japanese designer and engineer responsible for the Zero Fighter used in WWII. While the film romanticizes Horikoshi's story a great deal, many in Japan and South Korea have lambasted it for failing to examine the full effects of his work.
One critic who took great offense to this was Village Voice film critic Inkoo Kang, who lobbied hard against The Wind Rises before the Boston Society of Film Critics cast their votes in the Best Animated Film category. Here's the text of Kang's statement, provided by Indiewire...
The Japanese Imperial Army killed 30 million people -- a fact that is barely alluded to by the film.
As you may know, its most egregious offenses during WW2, which include
orchestrated mass rape, slave labor, and medical human experimentation
on live and conscious human beings, are not taught to students, nor are
they mentioned in textbooks.
After
decades of denying that Japan had forced tens of thousands of Korean
and Chinese women into sex slavery, one Japanese prime minister finally
admitted his country's actions during the war. Every other prime
minister has since reversed the apology, either minimizing or wholly
denying those war crimes.
Miyazaki's
film is wholly symptomatic of Japan's postwar attitude toward its
history, which is an acknowledgement of the terribleness of war and a
willful refusal to acknowledge its country's role in that terribleness.
The
film also pits European and American powers, in the abstract, as
Japan's rivals, but in fact, those planes were used to "pacify" Japan's
Korean colony and invade China, the Philippines, and Vietnam, and many
other countries, including, of course, the U.S.
To
me, the fact that the film glosses over the true purpose of those
planes -- and never mentions the fact that those planes were built by
Chinese and Korean slave labor -- is morally egregious.
She would also refer to the film as "morally repugnant", Despite her comments, the group went ahead and awarded the prize to The Wind Rises, beating out Disney's Frozen. Chances are it will continue to gain Oscar buzz over the coming weeks, but it's clear that some voters will be thinking a little bit harder about the animation category this year.
She would also refer to the film as "morally repugnant", Despite her comments, the group went ahead and awarded the prize to The Wind Rises, beating out Disney's Frozen. Chances are it will continue to gain Oscar buzz over the coming weeks, but it's clear that some voters will be thinking a little bit harder about the animation category this year.
