The anxiety of opening one’s heart to another marks this underrated Miyazaki effort about a WWI pilot cursed to look like a pig—it could be his funniest film, yet the enveloping sense of nostalgia and memory makes us yearn for a past that we have never known.
Review #2,737
Dir. Hayao Miyazaki
1992 | Japan | Animation, Adventure, Comedy | 94 min | 1.85:1 | Japanese
G (passed clean) for violence and some mild language
Cast: Shuichiro Moriyama, Tokiko Kato, Bunshi Katsura Vi
Plot: In 1930s Italy, a former WWI fighter pilot who has been turned into an anthropomorphic pig by a curse is now a bounty hunter, battling the sky pirates of the Adriatic Sea.
Awards: –
Distributor: Studio Ghibli
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Opening One’s Heart; Courage; Curse
Narrative Style: Straightforward
Pace: Normal
Audience Type: Mainstream
Viewed: Netflix
Spoilers: No
The older I get, the more I find myself falling in love with Porco Rosso. Rarely invoked in any discussion on the best films of Hayao Miyazaki, this one Crimson Pig is surely one of the master’s finest creations in that it triumphantly answers the question: how good can an anime be about a WWI pilot who is cursed to look like a pig? Well, very.
Probably Miyazaki’s most underrated effort, Porco Rosso could also be his funniest film, from the opening scene of air pirates kidnapping a bunch of giggly girls who don’t seem to be bothered by their situation, to an excessive punching duel between two men (I haven’t seen a more flat-out hilarious boxing scene since Chaplin’s City Lights from 1931).
Despite these playful, ‘kiddish’ moments, Porco Rosso somehow possesses an enveloping sense of nostalgia and memory, a feeling so potent that by the film’s coda, it is difficult not to shed a tear.
“I’d rather be a pig than a fascist.”
Set in Italy in the early 1930s, Miyazaki’s work makes us yearn for a past that we have never known, and perhaps more fascinatingly, long for a fictional anime world that has never existed.
As a mid-career work, Porco Rosso was probably his most emotionally mature film at that point, and in hindsight, would make an excellent double-bill with his later, more melancholic The Wind Rises (2013).
Both films explore the thrill of flight amid the designing and construction of fighter planes amid the backdrop of militarism and war, though Porco Rosso is, without doubt, the more fun film.
The anxiety of opening one’s heart to another also gives it a dash of romanticism, particularly when set in contrast with the fearlessness of the fighter pilots.
Grade: A
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 