The work of Hayao Miyazaki has a number of distinct trademarks—including strong heroines, magic, and a reverence for nature—but there may be none as captivating to watch as the director’s fascination with flight. Miyazaki’s films are chock-full of witches, pilots, dragons, and all kinds of contraptions soaring through immense stretches of sky. A new video from Zach Prewitt captures the magic of Miyazaki’s acrophilia, cutting together his many lovingly rendered scenes characters of flying through the air.
Miyazaki’s father, as Prewitt points out, was the head of Miyazaki Airplane, a company that manufactured parts for WWII fighter planes. Miyazaki’s own lifelong obsession with war planes contradicted his anti-war stance, something he had in common with pacifist and engineer Jiro Horikoshi, the subject of his historical drama The Wind Rises.
There’s no telling yet whether Miyazaki’s mysterious next feature will reach the same heights as his past work. But in the meantime, Studio Ponoc, which was founded by several of the director’s protégés, is keeping that love of flight very much alive.
