Porco Rosso (Hayao Miyazaki, 1992)
So have we decided the question of whether Miyazaki is a skeezy old man? The unifying connection between all his films is impressive young girls. They may be smart or precocious or brave or skilled, but they are in one or many ways stellar. Porco Rosso perhaps takes it the furthest with an ambiguous sort of relationship between the middle-aged Porco Rosso and 17 year old Fio (who is the object of desire of all the adults, though admittedly so is the other main female character). Her grandfather even acknowledges that the intentions may not be entirely innocent for the avowed womanizer, telling Porco to keep his hands off.
Anyway, this makes an interesting double feature with Top Gun, which I watched earlier. I was about to say that unlike Top Gun, this doesn't have the excessive machismo, but it really has even more machismo, and it feels less authentic. Here the stakes seem so much less, failing to justify the antagonism between Porco and Curtis, and yet the antagonism leads to a direct physical confrontation. Similarly Curtis' pursuits of women goes beyond a persistent, flirty confidence to creepy overreach.
I do like the idea put forward about a distinction between Porco's piggish, kind of sloth/hedonist form of selfishness and the arrogant, ambitious selfishness of Curtis. It is in a way saying, yeah, Porco is a pig, but that might be better than being a man. But ultimately the film seems a bit confused about what its central conceit is. Too many avenues are introduced (Porco and Gina's romantic potential) without any satisfying payoff. It makes me inclined to view the film with the limited emotions with which Porco seems to view the world. This narrative confusion combined with rather unenthralling action sequences ultimately leaves me unsatisfied.
Rating: 2/5
As a bit of a guide for this marathon so far, they are ranked like this (with ones yet to be re-seen in parenthesis):
(Spirited Away)
Nausicaa
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(Howl's)
(Totoro)
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Mononoke
(Lupin III)
Castle In The Sky
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Porco
Kiki's
(Ponyo)