Finally saw an Oscar Nominee...

For the animated feature films division this year, though it wasn't the winner.  

I have yet to see "Frozen," but from what I've seen of the ads, it seems more like a general crowd-pleaser movie.  I got to see "The Wind Rises" yesterday and I'm surprised it didn't take the Oscar because it just had more of that "Oscar" feel to it.  It's not really like most movies I've seen... it's kind of a movie that "reads like a novel," actually - telling the story of a decade of a man's life interspersed with dream sequences.  It's not the usual gods and spirits type of Miyazaki fantasy film - it's a historical drama told with dreams.  

Like the rest of Miyazaki's canon, it is very beautiful.  I've always been amazed at the work on the backgrounds on Studio Ghibli films - they have so much detail to them, so much love put into them. 

I'm not sure it's really a "crowd-pleaser" type, in that, while there's nothing objectionable as far as letting young children watch it, but unlike with Totoro, I'd expect them to get a little bored, unless you have children that are precocious history and/or design buffs. (Any kid who loves airplanes will love it).  It's a very *mature* film - in the true sense of the word (not violence and sex and all the stuff popularly labeled "mature" ) but in sophistication, complexity, history.  

It asks a complex question: Are you willing to create beautiful things even knowing that they are likely to be misused/used for destruction?  

It's an interesting question.  I've considered it on some level, myself, actually, as a fiction writer after reading lists of "books used for causes the authors never intended them for."   (There's a list somewhere on Cracked citing that very thing... "Horton Hears a Who" used as American issues political propaganda baffles me the most).   

For those who've seen the film: I've seen a Wiki image:  Italian designer Caproni's giant multi-winged plane-boat thing?  Really existed. And was photographed.  (Before the predictable happened to it).  Look it up. I was amazed.