If Pigs Had Wings -- Miyazaki's Whimsical Porco Rosso
Dec 07 '00
Pros: Fun story, memorable characters, typically gorgeous Miyazaki animation.
Cons: Only available as fan-sub at present, fairy-tale premise may strike some viewers as excessively silly.
Note: this is not a top-ten list. Unfortunately, Epinions has chosen not to list anime movies for which commercial translations are not presently available. "Best Anime Films Ever" seems like a reasonably good place to post reviews of the several Studio Ghibli films which are not commercially available here until such time as they have their own listings.
Marco Pagott is a pilot who flew with the Italian Air Force in World War One (when Italy fought on the Allied side against Germany and its traditional enemy, Austria-Hungary). Disgusted by the rise of fascism after the war, Marco has left the Air Force and now operates as an independent, mercenary pilot, running his Savoia S-2 sea-plane out of a hidden lagoon on an island in the Adriatic. His superb flying skills make him much in demand by ships seeking protection from the air pirates who terrorize the Adriatic. (No, that didn't happen in real history. So what?) Marco's life would be wonderful, except for one problem: for reasons he doesn't fully understand, he has been turned into a pig -- or rather, into a short, portly humanoid with a porcine snout and ears; he retains his upright stance, his hands, and his power of speech. This curious affliction, and the brilliant red color of his aircraft, have earned Marco his nomme de guerre: Porco Rosso, the Crimson Pig. Apart from the name, however, nobody pays much attention to Marco's appearance; in Miyazaki's fairy-tale world, such minor magical phenomena are more-or-less taken for granted.
After trouncing the noxious Mama Aiutto pirate gang and rescuing a gaggle of school-girls they had kidnapped (who looked on the whole incident as a great adventure), Marco heads to the Hotel Adriano, where all the independent pilots operating around the Adriatic come to relax. The hotel is run by Marco's closest friend, the lovely cabaret singer Gina. Gina is still young, but already widowed three times over because of her penchant for marrying pilots. Her first husband was Marco's wingman during the war, the others old friends and mercenary comrades of his, and their shared grief has created an intense bond between them that neither will fully acknowledge. Her heartfelt songs of love and loss are very popular among the pilots; out of respect for her wishes, they have all agreed not to fight within fifty miles of the hotel.
At the Adriano Marco encounters the brash young American pilot Donald Curtis, who boasts of his flying skills and flirts outrageously with Gina. Later, Curtis is hired by the Mama Aiutto gang to avenge their humiliation at Marco's hands. Vain and impetuous Curtis may be, but he's a hell of a pilot; Marco may finally have met his match.
After his engine fails during an aerial duel with Curtis, Marco brings his wrecked plane to the small aircraft works in Milan owned by his old friend Signor Piccolo. Unfortunately, business has been slow recently, and Piccolo's workers have all gone elsewhere -- but his red-headed granddaughter Fio has come to stay with him and learn his trade, and she offers to help rebuild the plane. Marco is skeptical at first, but Fio persuades him to let her try. She turns out to be a precociously gifted aeronautical engineer, and the Crimson Pig is soon ready to take to the air again, equipped with a powerful new Rolls-Royce engine (Rolls built most of the aircraft engines used by the Royal Air Force in World War Two, including the one that powered the Spitfire). It’s none too soon, as the fascist police are moving in to arrest him. As Marco prepares to leave, however, Fio drops a bombshell: because they haven’t had time to properly flight-test the plane, she insists on going with him to make sure nothing goes wrong with it.
The art in Porco Rosso matches the stellar standard set by Miyazaki's other films, with beautiful ocean and island backgrounds, and great attention to small details such as the sparkle of sunlight off the water, or a character's reflection in a glass of wine. The period details are especially interesting: fascist posters in Milan, an old black-and-white cartoon that Marco watches in a movie theater, and of course the lovingly rendered 1920's aircraft. The character designs, as in all of Miyazaki's work, are simple but more natural-looking than the huge-eyed characters of much other anime, and wonderfully effective at conveying facial expressions. The Japanese voice acting is also excellent; Marco's gruff, basso profundo voice really sounds like a porcine grunt, Gina's smoky contralto is the essence of the depression-era chanteuse, and Fio's lighter voice effectively conveys her enthusiasm and spunk. (I've only seen the movie subtitled, but a dubbed version should be available sometime in the next few years from Buena Vista Studios, the Disney subsidiary which recently licensed most of Miyazaki's films; they're the ones that did the excellent dub of Princess Mononoke.)
Astute viewers of Miyazaki's movies will notice a parallel between this one and The Castle of Cagliostro: the love triangle that develops between Marco, Gina, and Fio resembles that between Wolf, Fujiko, and Clarice. In both films, the roguish but good-hearted hero flirts quietly with his wordly old flame while protecting an innocent young girl (and gently deflecting her advances), and in both films the two female characters become friends in spite of their potential rivalry for the hero’s affections. Those who've seen Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind will also notice that Fio looks like she could be Nausicaa's twin sister.
In conclusion, I would highly recommend Porco Rosso to all fans of Miyazaki or of animation in general, and also to aviation enthusiasts interested in the early history of flight and aircraft design.
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Epinions.com ID:
mantis
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Location: Riverside, CA
Reviews written: 43
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