Porco Rosso

Michael and I watched another Studio Ghibli movie last night: Porco Rosso. It's about a sea-plane pilot based in the Adriatic in the lead-up to the second world war. He spurns the Italian military service and instead makes a living hunting air pirates in his crimson painted plane, while maintaining a close friendship/closet romance with Gina, who runs a night-club on a tiny island in the middle of the sea. Despite his repeated assertions that he's a no-good kind of bloke, he is a man of honour and ends up getting into a sky duel with a goofy American (can't remember his name) who has ambitions to be a movie-star, to defend his mechanic (played by the same chick that played Nausicaa, in the eponymous movie)from having to marry the Yank (she bet her hand in marriage against the money to repay Porco Rosso's latest repair bill - it was a lot of money, okay?). Oh yeah, and he's a pig.

It's a nice movie - like most of Hayao Miyazaki's movies there's a lot of flying, and also a "Girls can do anything!" attitude. While a lot of movies have a plucky young girl with an unlikely skill (in this case, aircraft design), Mr Miyazaki brings in an entire workshop of women, holding down jobs bcause their men-folk are away, up to and including three little old ladies working for poker money. Speaking of flying, Studio Ghibli is named after a kind of Italian fighter plane, so the movie is certainly going back to the film-maker's roots.

The lead is a likable person, and the English voice actor had a wonderful gravelly voice (and I like voices). The goofy sky pirates are really similar to the goofy sky pirates from Castle in the Sky but that's okay - everyone needs comic relief. I liked the way that the romance unfolded slowly, like a beautiful flower.

And that's all to say. Just go watch it - you'll like it.

Now I just have to track down Kiki's Delivery Service...