Kurenai no buta [Porco Rosso aka The Crimson Pig] (1992)

(Netflix Streaming, July 2020) Only writer-director Hayao Miyazaki could get away with the strange blend of elements to be found in Porco Rosso. After all, you wouldn’t necessarily expect animation to take on mid-1920s Italy as a setting, nor to complicate things even further by featuring seaplanes, air pirates, the lingering weight of war a few years after an armistice, a character aspiring to Hollywood stardom, a rich heiress, and a hero magically transformed from pilot to anthropomorphic pig. It’s a lot to take in, but much of the first half of the film is delightful considering how it just keeps throwing elements of its bizarre imagined universe at the viewer. There’s a lot of romance here for early aviation, an affection for its Italian characters, twisted loyalties (as the protagonist is pursued both by pirates and the US government), a loyal female sidekick and a host of other characters. It’s difficult to describe and it sounds utterly ridiculous on paper, but it works well once the film gets going. It all comes down to an aerial race, and then a bloody fist-fight in thigh-deep water. There is considerable and unlikely charm to Porco Rosso, far more so than the sum of its components. But that’s part of the Miyazaki magic, creating entirely fresh universes at each film in order to tell us a story that escapes neat patterns and genre distinctions. Liking it takes a backseat to being very impressed by it.