i'd rather be a pig than a fascist

Yesterday, Disney finally released Porco Rosso on DVD in North America. I'm hooked on Studio Ghibli movies, and Porco Rosso and Pompoko are the only ones I haven't watched yet; Porco Rosso the only Miyazaki feature. So I was really looking forward to this movie.

A friend once gave me a copy of Helen McCarthy's Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation. In it, I'd read about Porco Rosso. I read it's about an early 30's Italian seaplane pilot who hires himself out to fight air pirates. The hook is that this pilot is, literally, a pig. A beautiful old (human) friend from the Great War pines away for him back in the home castle, while a beautiful young airplane engineer pines away for him in the front seat of his plane. It's a ten-year-old boys' fantasy of the romantic life of a fighter pilot.

The movie delivers on what it promises - beautiful planes, beautiful women, beautiful Adriatic skies - but no more. Its wisp of a story is overwhelmed by Miyazaki's nostalgia for the brave few. It is a pleasant enough for those in the mood.

But its implied themes unsettle me enough to take most of the enjoyment out of the viewing. The sexism of women who love their men unconditionally, embrace their subservience, do all the cooking, and, in their free time (if wartime necessitates) manufacture planes, is absurd. The ploy of having Porco desert his fascist air force is blatantly political in nature, yet so simplistic a view of what really happened in Italy (and Japan) in the 30s that those of us who know better are shaking our heads instead of admiring the dogfights and period backdrops.

I believe it the weakest of the Ghibli movies I've seen. Yet it's still more thoughtful and lovingly crafted than most American feature animation.