Porco Rosso is a Frog Prince story taken to spectacularly romantic heights. The proverbial frog is in this case an ace pilot of a pig, Marco, who turns his back on fascist 1930`s Italy to be a pirate chasing bounty hunter. The film explores how he came to be the pacifist he is through his pirate hunting adventures and two distinct love stories that he gets involved in. With love portrayed both as the innocent arrow of cupid, and also the evolution of a deep relationship over time, set in pre-WWII Italy, centered around a grandiose imagining of the exotic and heart pounding life style of a sea pilot, Porco Rosso is so romantic that some adventure-loving sheltered girl somewhere in the world is probably swooning and gushing over it this very instant.
Story & Characters
Like most Miyazaki movies, Porco Rosso doesn`t follow the general plot structure of a Hollywood flick of this nature where the entirety of the plot is spent layering the conflict between hero and villain until it builds up to the boiling point that is the climax. The inevitability of the climactic confrontation is clear early on, but instead of spending the film hyping up the dramatic bang, we get a look into Marco`s business as usual life as well as his relationships with a childhood friend, Gina, and a whelp of a mechanic, Fio. The final dogfight is the airshow spectacle it promises to be, but the real payoff comes with learning about Marco and his associates.
This story is far from a realistic portrayal of warfare and pirate hunting. Who knew that gruff and unkempt pirates would be full of maternal instincts when handling child hostages? In typical Miyazaki fashion, killing intent is absent in the violence, and malice is absent from criminals. It has all the adventurous notions of an Indiana Jones without even an ounce of villainy. Children can easily appreciate the visual beauty and the lofty, loosely historical fantasy world without any objections from their parents, while only teenagers and adults will be able to empathize with the understated but deep affection Marco shares with Gina. In contrast, Fio`s love is more in line with the romance that Ghibli has produced in the past: it is beautiful and sweet, perhaps an emotion as wonderful as any, but upon reflection is no more than youthful infatuation. The romances provide nostalgic and heartfelt moments while the softie pirates and a gaudy american womanizer lighten up the drama.
Music
The music is a bit glaringly two faced, but fitting in an odd sense. You have circus music tracks that go with the antics of the goofier characters. The blaring tubas, trombones and cymbals feel perfectly in line with the farce that is babysitting pirates. Then there are the string centric orchestral pieces that capture well the melancholy bitter sweet of Marco`s relationships. The film itself draws clear bounds between the comic and the romantic, and the wildly different tracks plays into it.
Animation
If the animation is judged solely on the loveliness of Miyazaki`s imagined Italy, there would be nothing to criticize. The aesthetic is not as eye catching as his more recent works; the colors aren`t gaudy or luscious, but its muted palette is in its own way captivating. Its his ideas themselves, from Gina`s island villa, to Marco`s deserted island paradise, to the quaint bar where Gina plays lounge singer nightly, captivating pirates and bounty hunters alike, that convey romance and beauty more than a color palette can. It positively makes you want to roll all around it as a tourist, but alas, such an Italy could only reside in one`s imagination. Where the animation falters, and I use this word relative to other Miyazaki works, is in the plain human animations. In Totoro, Spirited Away or Kiki`s Delivery Service, there are segments of life like animation that can stand alone and develop the humanity of the characters with no more than a line or 2 of dialogue, if any. Porco Rosso misses the final dimension, the humanity that can be found in say, either one of Chihiro`s daring explorations of the outside edges of the bath house in Spirited Away. This quality is so rare in anime though that unless you are specifically expected Miyazaki`s wow factor in this regard, you won`t be missing it. The facial expressions still breathe a little bit of his usual visual life into the characters.
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Above all else, this film is a portrait of its characters. While it leaves a few questions unanswered, the characters are fleshed out enough to make reasonable assumptions about the more important ones. The alternative, a happily ever after ending would be too conclusive and abrupt to fit the complex relationships that were established. Unlike Kiki, Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke,Porco Rosso doesn`t have a coming of age, or environmentalist message that can be gleaned and summed up in a single sentence. It`s a beautiful story that`s narrow in its focus on romantic ideas, but broad in the variety of emotions it can express with such a focus.
