Porco Rosso (1994)

Touches You

Powerful

Fantastic!

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

I am sorry but what the hell is this film. This movie is just bad like seriously a mutated pig head, a male manager and all his workers are female. A 40 year old womaniser wants to get married to a teenage girl. Overall worst anime movie ever made.

I have very fond memories of this film. I saw "Kurenai no buta" (1992) as part of a retrospective of Miyazaki's works in Bologna presumably some five years ago, and I have fond memories not only of the film but the experience of seeing it in Italy (I'm an Italian teacher and studied at L'Università di Bologna). This is a wonderfully detailed trip to the Adriatic Sea and Milan, and the language is used to great effect. Yet what has stayed with me the most ever since is the wild sense of fun the whole film exudes. Now that I'm slowly marching through most of Miyazaki's oeuvre, it's a nice moment for a dear revisit.And wild fun it is, one of the funniest works of film art I've had the privilege to witness, including what I consider to be funny: "Bakumatsu taiyôden" (1958), the best of Chaplin and Keaton, "The Falls" (1980). If going to the movies would always be like this! I think the filmmakers' love for film can make the viewers love film, and this is an example of perfectionist, lovely filmmaking. Miyazaki is not only talented, he's intuitive and able to translate that intuition into the film. It's very impressive how he sculpts mood and atmosphere, at times lingering nostalgically, at others romantically, at others tragically. But the undersong is always satiric, heavily ironic and quite simply such a hoot there were many moments when I just couldn't stop laughing and applauding the wit and imagination behind it all.Much of this stems from Marco being such a marvellous character. Falstaffian in his glee, he embodies the film. Surrounded by beautiful women, Fio becomes our surrogate by the end, and Jina-sama (Gina) the other end of the spectrum; not rash and wild just as Fio, but reasonable, steadfast. It's a wisely and successfully created web of interaction.An etymological obiter dictum: the word that became part of the anime studio's name, "ghibli", is an actual Italian word. It comes from the Arabic "qibli", another word for the sirocco (the word "sirocco" comes from the Greek 'sirokos'). It was the point of Studio Ghibli to bring some fresh air to the anime industry. But the word has another context, and the film integrates it beautifully: "Ghibli" comes from the name of an Italian Caproni aircraft used in World War II, and in the film the new engine installed to Marco's aircraft bears the name. In that sense Marco's mission becomes not only the embodiment of Miyazaki and the studio, but also of a whole ideal. And still Marco, or the Marco in Fio (or vice versa), will always be our surrogate for adventure.It's a lovely ending, as well. During the whole film Miyazaki has played with us when it comes to Marco's spell, and much is made of how things seem. Yet, in a stroke of genius and wholly appropriate to the context of the film, we never really see. It's all a secret, that is, something so personal that it ceases to exist, in fact couldn't exist, in words or images. It is only implied, and then carried in our hearts.

On the surface, Porco Rosso (1992) is a lushly animated adventure flick with a tinge of nostalgia for the pilots of the 1920s. Underneath the skin, its a film fraught with anxiety about war and fascism. In some ways, it is like Miyazaki's first feature, The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), a seemingly frothy popcorn film that contains well-hidden sadness at the core; however, here that sadness is much more visible.This seems to be one of Miyazaki's lesser known films for whatever reason. Is it because the main character is a middle aged man disillusioned with life instead of a child or teenager? Is it the pre-WWII setting? Is it the lack of fantasy elements (outside of the protagonist having turned himself into a pig, that is)? I don't know, but it's a shame.

This is another brilliant movie from Hayao Miyazaki. He creates a beautiful world where Adriatic sea is controlled by Air Pirates. Where you can have your own hideaway island. Where you get around using your own seaplane. At it's core this is children's cartoon. It's very bright both in terms of atmosphere and colour. Maybe this is what made me like it so much as an adult. Watching this movie brought me back to my childhood when I used to dream of adventure. The movie is beautifully animated, full of humour and eccentric characters. There is a little love story. There is a little coming of age story. The plot is pretty straightforward but very consistent. Overall, an amazing movie, go see it.