Porco Rosso/Kurenai no buta
By Kit Macdonald
Porco Rosso (the original title of which was Kurenai no buta) is one of the Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki's more reality-based animations, with a basis in real historical tensions and the real world, in contrast to his many fantastical works. Set in the interwar period in the Adriatic Sea, the story revolves around Marco Pagot, a former Italian fighter ace cursed to live with the face of a pig.
Now a freelance bounty hunter, Marco patrols the skies and hunts air pirates, while grappling with disillusionment, loneliness and the scars of war. The film beautifully marries rousing aerial-battle action with reflections on themes as big and serious as mortality, politics and love, and has the rise of fascism in Italy, the fading glamour of early aviation and the shadow of both World Wars as its backdrop.