Porco Rosso

I dig Hayao Mizyazaki. If you don’t at least know of him, you owe it to yourself to track anything he’s done down if you call yourself a movie lover. Yeah, I know it’s anime and yeah, I know most anime is generally backward in most people’s minds but let me reassure you that Miyazaki’s movies don’t display the normal qualities you might have come to associate with anime.  Think more “character study in an animated format.”  He’s a bit of hippie and that definitely comes through in most, if not all, of his movies but more in a cool, “Gandhi” way than a rancid patchouli stink kind of way.  His stories are usually anti-war, contain messages of environmentalism, hardly ever have an antagonist, and they promote feminism with female leads that aren’t hackneyed or act like bitchy sluts to prove that they’re assertive. If you want to know more about him, check out his Wikipedia entry as it’s reasonably legit.  Now I haven’t seen a movie of his that I didn’t like but my  favorite of all his films, Porco Rosso, differs from the rest that I’ve seen in that it feels like his most adult oriented film.  I’ll be reviewing the dubbed version because it’s pretty good and I didn’t feel like reading.  Eat it, sub snobs.

Porco Rosso (The Crimson Pig) is about an ace sea plane pilot/bounty hunter and takes place post World War I in the Adriatic Sea and its surrounding countries of the time. I get the impression that the dub cleans him up a little but nonetheless, Porco, as portrayed by Michael Keaton (Batman), is an Italian, chain smoking, heavy drinking, overweight, middle aged womanizer that still manages to come across as charming because none of these vices seem to affect his generally benign nature. Fittingly, he’s also suffering from a curse that has turned him into an anthropomorphic pig. His interactions aren’t affected by his appearance and everybody who is in the know is well aware of his cursed status as well as his legendary piloting skills and it’s the latter of which that he is better known for. He’s also an outlaw, wanted by the increasingly fascist Italian military of the time.  Keaton does well here and at first, I couldn’t tell who the voice actor was.  It sounds like he hits that deep note he hit when offering that fly a Zagnut in Beetlejuice but without sounding corny.  Porco’s voice is low key and hardened without being overtly cranky the majority of the time and it works for the character.

The plot revolves around Porco and his amicably sportsman-like relationship (well, on Porco’s side anyway) with the very sea plane pirates he hunts turning sour. When the pirates finally get fed up with having their asses handed to them by Porco, they set about hiring an American legend in the world of acrobatic aviation and no slouch in aerial combat, Donald Curtis played by Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride), to take him out.  Incidentally, Elwes has the best southern drawl I’ve ever heard come out of a Brit. What starts off as a pretty straightforward story, turns into an honest film dealing with disillusionment with life; the world and what that can turn you into. It becomes very much about redemption and the movie is handled pretty well in that some kids might be entertained by “LOLATALKINGPIG” while adults will appreciate the heartfelt story about a guy who’s suffered through a lot of shit (some of it pretty horrible) and hasn’t necessarily weathered that shit storm very well. He deals the best that he can and while clever and superficially jovial, Porco is a bitter and damaged guy.

The supporting cast is pretty impressive. Broadway actor, singer, Susan Egan (Spirited Away) picks up her second Miyazaki performance as Gina, an important friend from Porco’s childhood and the proprietor of the Hotel Adriano. Which, in Casablanca-like fashion, serves as a neutral zone where all sea plane pilots, bounty hunter, and pirate alike meet to eat, drink, and enjoy the singing performances of Ms. Gina herself. Egan does really well in this role; her voice comes through, much like Keaton’s, conveying a subtle hint of her life’s hardships. Other roles include, David Ogden Stiers (M*A*S*H) providing the memorable, funny, and VERY unrecognizable vocals of Mr. Piccolo, a trusted mechanic friend of Porco’s. Piccolo’s mechanical genius of a granddaughter, Fio, is played by Kimberly Williams-Paisley (According to Jim).  She manage to hike her voice up a few octaves for us to buy that Fio’s in her teens but her performance did kind of grate on my nerves here and there.  Despite that minor quibble, her character’s youthful optimism is so infectious, she’s easily my second favorite role in this film behind Porco. And finally, the poster boy for big, burly dumb asses in animated movies, Brad Garrett (Everybody Loves Raymond), is good for a chuckle as the leader of the Mamma Aiuto Gang.

Going into the quality of the animation and the atmosphere it creates, this movie, like I mentioned earlier, stands out from the rest of Miyazaki’s offerings. Taking a break from creating his usual fantastical locales, Miyazaki faithfully recreated a real world location with painstaking attention to detail. I’m no expert but apparently the exact locations visited in the story, which aren’t mentioned by name except for Milan, can be deduced by the style of clothing worn in any scene. If that’s true, that’s pretty insane.  Everybody and their mother is smoking and drinking most of the movie and the whole production smacks you in the face with an old Hollywood vibe.  As an ardent fan of aviation, you can see the passion that Miyazaki put into crafting a story centered around pilots. So deep is his love that Miyazaki regards pilots as a separate class of people as shown in a beautifully heart wrenching scene where if you don’t get even a little misty eyed watching, it then you probably kill kittens for a living.

Ultimately, what you get with Porco Rosso is an animated movie that might entertain kids. But I can’t see most of them being able to sit still through this as it’s pretty slow paced.  I think older kids will like it but adults will have more to identify with in this movie.  All of Miyazaki’s movies are top notch and usually deal with broad social matters but I get the impression that this movie might be a little more personal than the rest.  I’d seen four or five of his other movies prior to seeing this for the first time but this one blew me away.  So if you feel like checking out a cartoon that’s really not a cartoon, you really can’t go wrong with Porco Rosso.  Approved and highly recommended.

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