Miyazaki's last film

Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese film director, animator, manga artist, illustrator, producer and screenwriter whose career has spanned six decades. He is best known here for his films Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, which I consider a masterpiece.

His latest film, and apparently his last, is The Wind Rises, which was nominated for an Academy Award for best animated feature. It is a fictionalized biography of Jiro Horikoshi (1903–1982), designer of the Mitsubishi A5M and its successor, the Mitsubishi A6M Zero; both aircraft were used by the Empire of Japan during World War II.

Unlike most of his other films, which employ elements of fantasy and draw on Japanese mythology, The Wind Rises is a straightforward, realistic story, though he uses dreamscape at several points in which Jiro meets Caproni, an Italian plane designer.

Jiro grows up wanting to fly, but because his eyesight is poor, he cannot, so he turns to designing planes. He is drawn to the beauty of flight and how to make machines fly in the most efficient way possible.

During his time at university, where he’s studying engineering, Jiro meets a young girl named Naoko while traveling back to Tokyo from a holiday. The Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 hits, which stops the train and causes Naoko’s maid to break her leg. Jiro helps Naoko and her maid get to Naoko's family, then walks away without giving his name.

Jiro later works for an airplane manufacturer and is sent to Germany to do technical research. Later, at a summer resort in Japan, he runs into Naoko, and they fall in love. However, she has tuberculosis, and they postpone getting married.

Although the story in the film follows the historical account of Horikoshi's aircraft development chronologically, the depiction of his private life is entirely fictional. Without this fictional content, however, the film would be boring.

Miyazaki includes detail about the development of the planes, but he also develops various characters, giving them interesting personalities, such as Jiro’s excitable boss, Kurokawa, or his best friend, Honjo. There is also suspense, as the Japanese secret police are hunting Jiro. And Miyazaki is able to evoke strong emotions, as in his other films.

He also includes references to other works. At the resort is a German named Castorp, which is a character from Thomas Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain, which takes place at a sanatorium on a mountainside. The film also quotes a poem by Christina Rossetti.

The film was controversial in Japan, receiving criticism from both the political left and right. Miyazaki has criticized Japan’s conservative party for wanting to change the constitution, but he also defended making a film about a war-plane designer.

A clear theme of the film is the tension between an artist who wants to make something beautiful and those who use his talent to make machines used in war. This conflict between art and pragmatism is one Mennonites, especially Mennonite artists, can relate to.

While The Wind Rises is not of the caliber of Miyazaki’s best works, it is a beautiful film that will capture your interest and emotion. See it, and look for his other films, particularly Spirited Away. 

Daddy days: the growing use of paternity leave

 Many, from feminists to evangelicals, have lamented the absence of fathers in families. But the growing use of paternity leave by businesses may be addressing this problem in unique and surprisingly healthy ways.So claims Liza Mundy in her article “The Daddy Track” in The Atlantic (January/February). She notes that while some larger, progressive companies have been offering paternity leave, now several states have come on board. California, as usual, leads the way. In 2002, she writes, “[it] became the first U.S. state to guarantee six weeks of paid leave for mothers and fathers alike, financed by a small payroll-tax contribution from eligible workers.” Later, New Jersey and Rhode Island offered 12 and 13 paid weeks, respectively.

Here’s the surprise, according to Mundy: “In the long run, the true beneficiaries of paternity leave are women, and the companies and nations that benefit when women advance.”

A report by the World Economic Forum showed that “countries with the strongest economies are those that have found ways to further women’s careers, close the gender pay gap and keep women—who in most nations are now better educated than men—tethered to the work force after they become mothers,” writes Mundy.

It’s an interesting strategy, if it even is a strategy. A 2007 study found that 60 percent of professional women who stopped working reported that they were largely motivated by their husbands’ unavailability to share housework and child-care duties,” writes Mundy.

Rather than simply raising the wages of women, which needs to happen anyway, paternity leave addresses some of women’s concerns.

Quebec has been offering such leave for some time. In 2006, it increased the financial benefits for paid leave and offered five weeks that could be taken only by fathers. This gave an extra incentive for men to take such leave. And studies found that “fathers who take paternity leave are more likely, a year or so down the road, to change diapers, bathe their children, read them bedtime stories and get up at night to tend to them,” writes Mundy.

You may say men should have been doing these things anyway, but in large part they haven’t. Such a change in behavior has other benefits as well. According to sociologist Scott Coltrane at the University of Oregon, when men share “routine repetitive chores,” women feel they are being treated fairly and are less likely to become depressed, writes Mundy.

Paternity leave also helps change the stigma of parenting. Some employers are more reluctant to hire younger women because they may get pregnant and require maternity leave. “The rise of paternity-leave plans,” writes Mundy, “raise the possibility that bosses will stop looking askance at the résumé of a 20-something female applicant, or at least apply the same scrutiny to a similar male applicant.”

Quebec’s plan has certainly led to changes, and early signs show that California’s paid-paternity-leave program is increasing in use. The percentage of “bonding leaves” claimed by men rose from 18.7 in 2005-6 to 31.3 in 2012-13.

Furthermore, it has not been shown to significantly decrease the number of jobs. Workplaces have figured out ways to adjust. “The biggest hurdle,” writes Mundy, “seems to be getting the word out, particularly among lower-income families.” And yes, in California, at least, the policy is that it extends leave to men in non-white-collar jobs.

As use of paternity-leave programs increases, writes Mundy, “working fathers increasingly report feeling more work-family conflict than working mothers do.”

Finding ways for fathers to be more involved in raising their children can only make for healthier families. It also helps create healthier communities.