A movie recommendation:

Yesterday I saw a movie that I had not even heard of until a week ago, and it appealed to me as both an aeronautical engineer and an aircraft modeler.

It is an animated Japanese movie, dubbed (very well) into English, called "The Wind Rises", by famed director Hayao Miyazaki, whose prior creations included "Porco Rosso", another such movie with an aviation theme. It was nominated for the Best Animated Feature Academy Award, and was one of the highest grossing movies in Japan last year.

It is a fictionalized biography of the early years of Jiro Horikoshi, who went on to fame as the chief designer of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighter. The movie starts with Jiro as a young boy dreaming of aviation, but as his eyesight is too poor to become a pilot, he turns to engineering. The movie ends with the first flight of the prototype of his first successful design, the A5M (Claude).

Along the way he meets Giovanni Caproni (in his dreams) and Hugo Junkers (in reality), and the designs of both men are featured prominently, and done very well. The movie also does a good job of depicting Japanese life in the '20s and '30s, including such events as the 1923 earthquake and the Great Depression. It also gives a good look at how aircraft were designed back then! The engineering scenes are quite realistic.

As with all of Miyazaki's animation, the look of the film is absolutely stunning, and this will appeal even to those who are not particularly interested in aviation.

It is playing in limited release, and I don't know for how long. I did find it at one local theater with some difficulty; check your local newspaper or online movie time resources to see if it's playing in your area, but don't delay for too long.

Here is a link to the official movie trailer: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imtdgdGOB6Q]The Wind Rises - Official Trailer - YouTube[/ame]

 

I found an interesting article in the Asahi Shimbun about the relationship between Miyazaki and Caproni, which dates back to "Porco Rosso":

Miyazaki's 'The Wind Rises' pays homage to Italian aircraft designer - AJW by The Asahi Shimbun