Porco Rosso, Hayao Miyazaki

Porco Rosso is a 1992 animated film by Studio Ghibli. It was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki from his manga series called ” Hikōtei Jidai”. It reflects Miyazaki’s love of aviation, which he returned to in his last film “The Wind Rises”.

It tells the story of an Italian WWI ex fighter ace, now working as an aeronautical bounty hunter. Once known as Marco Pagot, he is now called Porco Rosso on account of being turned into pig by a curse. There is an element of mystery about Porco and his curse at the start of the film, although there is a flashback scene later of him in a dogfight against the Austro-Hungarian aircraft, which goes someway to explain this.

It starts with Porco in successful pursuit of air pirates. The pirates hire Curtis, an American ace to assist them. As Porco’s plane gets shot down he has to take it to his mechanic, Piccolo. In true Miyazaki style, Porco has to get over his chauvinist (you might say male chauvinist pig) tendencies as it turns out that Piccolo is now using his granddaughter, Fio as a mechanic. In fact the whole team that work on his plane are women. He does like to give strong roles to women in his films. Of course it’s all done with the usual charm that you would expect from Studio Ghibli.