Porco Rosso

Porco Rosso
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Hayao Miyazaki
Produced by	Toshio Suzuki
Written by	Hayao Miyazaki
Starring	Shūichirō Moriyama Tokiko Kato Akemi Okamura Akio Ōtsuka
Music by	Joe Hisaishi
Cinematography	Atsushi Okui
Editing by	Takeshi Seyama Hayao Miyazaki
Distributed by	Toho (Japan) Walt Disney Pictures (US)
Release date(s)	July 18, 1992 (1992-07-18)
Running time	94 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

Porco Rosso, known in Japan as Crimson Pig (紅の豚, Kurenai no Buta) is the sixth anime film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, produced by Studio Ghibli and released in 1992. The story is about an Italian World War I fighter ace, now living as a freelance bounty hunter chasing "air pirates" in the Adriatic Sea. The man has been cursed and transformed into a pig. Once called Marco Pagot, he is now known to the world as "Porco Rosso", Italian for "Red Pig".

The film is loosely based on Miyazaki's manga Hikōtei Jidai. It is said Miyazaki based the scenery on Rijeka, former Fiume, in Croatia.

Plot

During the Great Depression, Porco Rosso is a former flying ace who works as a freelance pirate hunter. He frequents the Hotel Adriano, where he spends time with Gina, the owner of the hotel and one of his closest friends.

An American pilot named Curtis attacks Porco in the air. Porco's engine breaks down, making him an easy target for Curtis, and he crashes. Curtis claims to have killed Porco.

Porco has his plane repaired by Piccolo S.P.A., an aircraft design shop owned by an old friend of Porco's. Because the male workforce has largely emigrated to find work, Piccolo has constructed a new workforce consisting of his female relatives, including his granddaughter, Fio. Porco realizes that Fio is a mechanical genius. She talks him into letting her accompany him, ostensibly to make further adjustments to the plane. As they depart, they are nearly ambushed by the Italian secret police.

Curtis attempts to seduce Gina into returning with him to a glamorous life in America. Gina rebuffs him. She tells him that if a certain man comes into her garden, they will fall in love. Porco's plane appears and circles Gina's garden and does some tricks, but does not land. Curtis is jealous that she would choose "that pig!" over him.

Porco discovers that his secret island hideout has been infiltrated by pirates. Fio talks them out of killing Porco or destroying his plane and appeals to their honor as seaplane pilots. Curtis then reveals himself and challenges Porco to a duel: if Porco wins, Curtis will pay off his airplane repairs; if Curtis wins, Fio will marry him.

Later that night Fio wakes up and finds Marco Pagot, who is Porco in human form. She asks him to tell her a story. He tells her about an incident that happened to him during the war. Marco's best friend and fellow fighter Bellini had married Gina. Immediately after he and Marco had returned to the skies, their seaplanes were attacked by an Austrian squadron. Exhausted after a long fight, Marco realized he was too weak to control the damaged plane. His plane then piloted itself into a cloud of startling brightness, and he imagined himself to be in heaven. Emerging at the top of the cloud, he spotted a white band high above him. The other squadron pilots from the battle, including Bellini, emerged from the cloud in their planes and climbed to the white band, which was a vast procession of planes downed in battle. Marco attempted in vain to prevent Bellini from joining the procession. Porco admits that he feels great guilt that he could not make Bellini return.

The next day, Porco and Curtis meet for the dogfight. The duel is organized by the pirates and held on a secluded island. The pirates bet heavily on the outcome. Porco initially avoids Curtis, baiting him into wasting ammunition. Curtis catches on to Porco's strategy. Porco out-flies him, using an aerial loop to gain tactical superiority, but he does not fire. Curtis thinks that Porco's guns are jammed, but one of the pirate bosses tells Fio that Porco will not take a shot at an enemy if there is a risk of hitting the pilot. Curtis' verbal taunts are silenced by a short burst of fire from Porco's guns. The duel looks like a stalemate, with each pilot attempting to gain superior position over the other.

Gina learns that the Italian Air Force are closing on the fight intending to arrest Porco, and she flies to warn him.

Porco and Curtis are exhausted by their constant manoeuvring. Porco lines up a clear shot at Curtis' engine, but his guns jam. Curtis sees opportunity, but he is out of ammo. The pilots begin throwing debris from their planes at each other, until they run out of fuel and ditch the bay. The duel degenerates into a fist fight. Driven by their intentions towards Fio, the fight drags on. Curtis taunts Porco that Gina is in love with him, and accuses Porco of taking advantage of Fio. They collapse and fall into the water. The pirates decide that the first one to surface wins the fight.

Gina's plane arrives. Porco rouses himself and surfaces first. Gina warns the island's inhabitants of the approaching Italian Air Force and everyone flees. Curtis honors his agreement and pays Fio. Porco sends Fio away with Gina, and Fio kisses Porco goodbye. Porco and Curtis agree to lead the the Air Force away from the others. Curtis is astonished by an off-camera change in Porco's appearance.

Eventually, Fio inherits the Piccolo company, Curtis becomes a Hollywood star who continues an affectionate correspondence with Fio, and the pirates spend their old age reminiscing at Gina's club. In the English dub, Porco "flew circles around the Italian Air Force" and remains at large; the subtitled version states that "Porco never showed up again, even after the Air Force did its sweep." Gina says the result of the bet with herself is a secret. A red seaplane can be seen at the other end of Gina's island.

Cast

Character	Original cast	Disney English dub cast
Porco Rosso	Shuichiro Moriyama	Michael Keaton
Donald Curtis	Akio Ōtsuka	Cary Elwes
Madame Gina	Tokiko Kato	Susan Egan
Mamma Aiuto Gang Boss	Tsunehiko Kamijo	Brad Garrett
Mr. Piccolo	Sanshi Katsura	David Ogden Stiers
Fio Piccolo	Akemi Okamura	Kimberly Williams-Paisley

Production

Fio and Porco

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 originally 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.

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, most likely near Rijeka in Croatia and the surrounding Dalmatian islands.

The story happens between the time of the two World Wars. The scenes in the Adriatic town suggest the town is Fiume (today Rijeka), although it could be set in any of the then Italian cities of Dalmatia. The story takes place during the fascist era; Italian guards are portrayed in military parades with typical fascist uniforms ("blackshirts"), albeit with different colors (black, blue and green). When Porco is buying ammunition from his favorite tool shop, the owner states that "government is changing again", which conceivably places the story in 1924, when Fiume was annexed by Italy under the terms of the Treaty of Rome. Italy, like many European countries, suffered severe economic hardship after the First World War and the economic crisis mentioned in the film is probably intended to be the European 1920s post-war depression rather than the global depression of the 1930s. However, the manga from which the film was derived specifically states the story is set in 1929, and in the opening sequence of the film Porco is reading a magazine bearing a 1929 date.

Porco makes statements of his being anti-fascist, quipping during one scene that "I'd much rather be a pig than a fascist".

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 also notably used in the film for Marco's Air Force pilot friend), but as a flying boat resembles most closely the Piaggio P-136 and later P-166 twin engined amphibians, in having a pusher/jet configuration, inverted gull-wing configuration, retractable wingtip floats that double as fuel tanks, side retractable wheels, and slotted flap surfaces. The Jet-amphibian is also reminiscent of the Fouga Zephyr glider which tested the Mabore Turbofan prior to the development of the more famous Magister jet trainer, and shares with both of these aircraft the inclusion of a V-tail.

Additionally, the light reconnaissance aircraft Caproni Ca.309 is known under the name "Ghibli", the same name as Miyazaki's and Takahata's animation studio.

In the early 1930s, Italian seaplane designers set world speed records (such as the Macchi M.C.72 designed by the Italian airplane designer Mario Castoldi). 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 (Nino Pagot was the author of the first Italian animated feature film, "I fratelli dinamite", and his sons Marco and Gi Pagot were Miyazaki's collaborators in the production of Sherlock Hound).

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. His character is also an oblique reference to Ronald Reagan, in that his ambitions lie not only in Hollywood, but also the Presidency. In the 1930s this would indeed have seemed remarkably ridiculous (hence Gina laughing off his ambition), though modern viewers will gain a satisfied grin from Curtiss on this score. The rest of Curtiss' 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.

Soundtrack

Porco Rosso
Soundtrack album by Joe Hisaishi
Released	22 July 1992
Label	Tokuma

1. "The Wind of Time (When a Human Can Be a Human)" – 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 (Cloud Trap)" – 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 (Flight)" – 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 (Ending)" – 2:35
22. "The Time of Cherries" (sung by Tokiko Kato) – 2:52
23. "Once in a While, Talk of the Old Days" (composition, lyrics, singing by Tokiko Kato, arrangement by Yoko Kanno, Junichiro Ohkuchi) – 3:56

Reception

Porco Rosso was the number one film on the Japanese market in 1992, earning ¥2.8 billion in distribution income. It was selected as the "Prix du long métrage (Feature movie) at the 1993 Annecy International Animated Film Festival. The film received a "Tomatometer Rating" of 100 percent positive, on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on thirteen reviews. It also made Time Out's top 50 animated movie list. On Anime News Network (ANN) Porco Rosso, as of Dec 2010, has over 2,600 ratings, the average of which is 8.212 out of 10.

Sequel

Miyazaki has proposed he wants to make a follow-up manga to the 1992 original film if his next few films following Ponyo are successful. The film's working name is currently Porco Rosso: The Last Sortie and will be set during the Spanish Civil War with Porco also returning, albeit this time as an old pilot, reflecting Miyazaki's own aging.

External links

• Porco Rosso page at Nausicaa.net
• Porco Rosso Russian page with historic approach
• Porco Rosso (film) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia
• Kurenai No Buta at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Porco Rosso at the Internet Movie Database
• Porco Rosso at AllRovi
• Review at THEM Anime
• Miyazaki talks the future at AintItCool.com