Porco Rosso


Porco Rosso is a 1992 Japanese animated comedy-adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It is based on Hikōtei Jidai, a three-part 1989 watercolor manga by Miyazaki. The film stars the voices of Shūichirō Moriyama, Tokiko Kato, Akemi Okamura and Akio Ōtsuka. Toshio Suzuki produced the film. It was animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Japan Airlines and the Nippon Television Network and distributed by Toho. Joe Hisaishi composed the music.
The plot revolves around an Italian World War I ex-fighter ace, now living as a freelance bounty hunter chasing "air pirates" in the Adriatic Sea. However, an unusual curse has transformed him into an anthropomorphic pig. Once called Marco Pagot, he is now known to the world as "Porco Rosso", Italian for "Red Pig" or "Red Pork".
A first English-dubbed version was included in the Ghibli LD Box Set and on the first Region 2 DVD releases in 2002. The film was later redubbed by Disney and released on DVD in the United States and Canada on February 22, 2005. GKIDS re-issued the film on Blu-ray and DVD on November 21, 2017 under a new deal with Studio Ghibli.

Plot

Porco Rosso, an Italian World War I fighter ace and freelance bounty hunter, fends off an attack on a ferry liner by airborne pirates. Porco treats himself to dinner at the Hotel Adriano, which is run by his friend Gina.
At the hotel, the heads of the pirate gangs are contracting Curtis, an arrogant and ambitious American ace, to assist them in their next attacks. Curtis falls in love with Gina on the spot, but is frustrated to see his declarations rebuffed and her affection for Porco. After successfully executing a pirating mission, Curtis tracks down Porco, who is flying to Turin to have his plane serviced, and shoots him down as he experiences an engine outage, claiming to have killed him. Porco survives, though his plane is heavily damaged. Porco continues the trip by train with the remains of the plane, much to the irritation of Gina, who reminds him that there is a warrant for his arrest in Italy.
Porco arrives discreetly in Milan to meet Piccolo, his mechanic. He learns that Piccolo's sons have emigrated to find work elsewhere due to the Great Depression, and much of the engineering will have to be carried on by his young granddaughter Fio. Porco is initially skeptical of Fio's abilities as a mechanic, but after seeing her dedication in the repair project he accepts her as a competent engineer. Once Porco's plane is finished, Fio joins him on his flight home, with the justification that if the secret police arrest the team, they can say that Porco forced them to help and took Fio as a hostage. Stopping off to refuel on the way, Porco discovers that the new fascist government is beginning to hire seaplane pirates for their own use, thus putting him out of business.
Back at the Hotel Adriano, Curtis proposes to Gina but she turns him down, saying that she is waiting for Porco Rosso. Upon returning home, Porco and Fio are ambushed by the pirates, who threaten to kill Porco and destroy his plane. Fio talks them out of it, but Curtis appears and challenges Porco to a final duel. Fio makes a deal with him declaring that if Porco wins, Curtis must pay off his debts owed to Piccolo's company, and if Curtis wins, he may marry her.
That night, while preparing shells for the dogfight, Porco tells Fio a story from World War I. Two days after Gina's first wedding to his friend Bellini, his squadron was attacked by Austro-Hungarian aircraft. Overwhelmed and unable to save his fellow pilots he entered a cloud to evade his pursuers. He recalls blacking out and awakening to find himself in complete stillness above the clouds, with a silver band shimmering high in the distant sky. Allied and enemy aircraft, flown by the airmen who died in the dogfight—Bellini included—rise out of the cloud and fly upward towards the band, ignoring him. Porco soon sees that the band is in fact thousands of planes flying together. He blacks out again, and awakens flying low over the sea, alone. As she falls asleep, Fio briefly see Marco's true face instead of the pig.
The next day, the duel is arranged and a large crowd gathers to observe. The indecisive and long dogfight between Porco and Curtis soon devolves into a bare-knuckle boxing match when both planes' machine guns jam. As they fight, Porco accuses Curtis of being a womaniser, but Curtis responds that he is worse; Fio adores him and Gina is only interested in him. This comes as such a shock to Porco that Curtis is able to knock him down, only for Porco to be saved by a pirate referee signalling the end of a round. The fight ends with both combatants knocking each other out and falling under the shallow water.
Gina arrives and calls out to 'Marco', who rises first and is declared the winner. She warns the crowd that the Italian air force has been alerted and are on their way, and invites everyone to regroup at her hotel. To Gina's frustration, Porco hands Fio over to Gina, requesting that she look after her, and turns away. Just before Gina's plane takes off, Fio leans out and gives Porco a kiss.
As the crowd leave, Porco volunteers to lead the air force away and invites Curtis to join him. Curtis reacts with surprise and asks Porco to turn around, suggesting that—like Fio—he had briefly seen Marco's true face. Fio narrates that in the end Porco outflies the Italian air force and is never hunted by them again; Fio herself became president of the Piccolo company, which is now an aircraft manufacturer; Curtis became a famous actor; and the pirates continued to attend the Hotel Adriano in their old age. She does not divulge whether Gina's hope about Porco Rosso was ever realized, saying it is their secret. However, a red plane can be seen docked by Gina's garden as the jet flies over the hotel.
After the credits, a familiar red seaplane appears soaring in the sky before disappearing into the clouds.

Cast

Additional voices

The film was originally planned as a short in-flight film for Japan Airlines based on Hayao Miyazaki's manga The Age of the Flying Boat, but grew into a feature-length film. The outbreak of war in Yugoslavia cast a shadow over production and prompted a more serious tone for the film, which had been set in Croatia. The airline remained a major investor in the film, and showed it as an in-flight film well before its theatrical release. Due to this, the opening text introducing the film appears simultaneously in Japanese, Italian, Korean, English, Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, French, and German. Telecom Animation Film Co., Ltd. helped animate the film.

History and politics

Porco Rosso is one of the few films directed by Hayao Miyazaki in which the historical and geographical settings are clearly defined and where most of the story could have happened in the real world. Marco is an Italian hero from the First World War and is shown fighting against Austro-Hungarian fighter planes in a flashback sequence. The story is set in the Adriatic Sea east coast between Dalmatian and Kvarner islands, and a fictionalized city of Fiume after its annexation to fascist Italy and Northern Italy. The concealed beach Porco uses as a hideout bears a strong resemblance to Stiniva, an inlet on the southern side of the Croatian island of Vis.
Porco makes statements of his being anti-fascist, quipping during one scene that "I'd much rather be a pig than a fascist". Miyazaki shed light on the political context of the making of the film in an interview with Empire. He reflects that the conflicts that broke out during the film's production made Porco Rosso a much more complicated and difficult film.
Evident historical and political realism aside, at least one scholar has argued that the film's more overt historical references can be understood as representative of wakon yōsai —a tendency, since the Meiji period, for Japanese artists to paint Europe as spectacular, while simultaneously maintaining the distance necessary to preserve a distinct sense of Japanese identity. "In Porco Rosso," states academic Chris Wood, "Europe is tamed, rendered as a charming site of pleasurable consumption, made distant and viewed through a tourist gaze."

Homage to early aviation

The fictional "Piccolo" aircraft company depicted in the film may be a reference to the Italian aircraft manufacturers Caproni and Piaggio. The jet shown in the last scene is very similar in concept to the Caproni C-22J, an aircraft designed by Carlo Ferrarin, a designer for Caproni, whose name is notably used in the film for Marco's Air Force pilot friend. The jet-amphibian also has a V-tail, slightly reminiscent of the Magister jet trainer.
Porco's air-force friend Ferrarin was inspired by the Italian Air Force pilot Arturo Ferrarin who flew with an Ansaldo SVA.9 from Rome to Tokyo in 1920. Additionally, the Caproni Ca.309 light reconnaissance aircraft is known under the name "Ghibli", the same name as Miyazaki's and Takahata's animation studio.
While in Piccolo's engine shop, the engine to be used in the Porco's rebuilt Savoia S.21 also has the word "Ghibli" visible on its rocker covers—in design it is a narrow-angle V-12 engine, similar in form to racing engines of the period. Piccolo mentions that it was used in a racing aeroplane for the Schneider Trophy race in the year before.
In the early 1930s, Italian seaplane designers set world speed records. One of the test pilots killed during the attempt to set the speed record was named Bellini, the name given to Porco's pilot friend in the film.
Marco Pagot, the name of the main character, is also a homage to the Pagot brothers, pioneers of Italian animation.
Meanwhile, the character of Curtis is likely to have been named after the American aviation pioneer Glenn Hammond Curtiss who, along with the Wright Brothers, founded the Curtiss-Wright Corporation. Curtis' airplane is a Curtiss R3C, which was built for the 1925 Schneider Cup race. His character is also an oblique reference to Ronald Reagan, in that his ambitions lie not only in Hollywood, but also the Presidency. The rest of Curtis' character appears to come directly from the adventure film heroes portrayed by Errol Flynn at this time—indeed, they share a jaw line—including his buccaneering derring-do, willingness to fight, and overall demeanour combined with romantic ardour.
Miyazaki revisited the theme of aviation history in his 2013 film The Wind Rises.

Soundtrack

  1. "The Wind of Time " – 2:50
  2. "MAMMAIUTO" – 1:21
  3. "Addio!" – 0:37
  4. "The Bygone Days" – 2:16
  5. "A Sepia-Coloured Picture" – 0:47
  6. "Serbia March" – 1:03
  7. "Flying Boatmen" – 2:36
  8. "Doom " – 1:23
  9. "Porco e Bella" – 1:06
  10. "Fio-Seventeen" – 2:04
  11. "The Women of Piccolo" – 2:04
  12. "Friend" – 3:04
  13. "Partnership" – 2:28
  14. "Madness " – 2:39
  15. "To the Adriatic Sea" – 1:50
  16. "In Search of the Distant Era" – 2:18
  17. "Love at First Sight in the Wildness" – 1:11
  18. "At the End of Summer" – 1:26
  19. "Lost Spirit" – 4:11
  20. "Dog Fight" – 2:10
  21. "Porco e Bella " – 2:35
  22. "The Time of Cherries" – 2:52
  23. "Once in a While, Talk of the Old Days" – 3:56

    Reception

Box office

Porco Rosso was the number-one film on the Japanese market in 1992, with distribution rentals of and gross receipts of .
In France, the film sold 167,793 tickets, equivalent to an estimated at an average 1992 ticket price of FF34. In other European countries, the film grossed $573,719. This adds up to an estimated total of approximately grossed at the worldwide box office.

Critical reception

It was selected as the Prix du long métrage at the 1993 Annecy International Animated Film Festival. It also made Time Out's Top 50 animated movie list. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 95% based on 20 reviews.
Wilson McLachlan, of the Left Field Cinema, considered it "the most underrated film from the Studio Ghibli catalogue." Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times wrote: "Mr. Miyazaki smooshes fantasy and history into a pastel-pretty yarn as irresistible as his feminism." Robert Pardi of TV Guide gave the film 4/5 stars, stating: "Miyazaki pays homage to Hollywood’s wartime adventure films in this masterwork built around the adventures of a high-flying pig... This animated feature's visual splendor is matched by a droll screenplay that takes a sty-side view of heroism... Seamlessly adapted for American audiences by Donald H. Davis and Cindy Hewitt Davis, this spoof/pastiche of old-movie cliches also soars as a paean to the redeeming power of friendship and loyalty."

Possible sequel

In 2011, Miyazaki said that he wanted to make a follow-up anime to the 1992 original film if his next few films following Ponyo were successful. The film's working name was Porco Rosso: The Last Sortie; it was to have been set during the Spanish Civil War with Porco appearing as a veteran pilot. Miyazaki was to write the film, but Hiromasa Yonebayashi was to direct. The studio has since indicated that the sequel will not be produced. Porco Rosso: The Last Sortie is Cancelled Until Further Notice.