Hayao Miyazaki
Porco Rosso

[Premise: this lengthy writing does not purport to be a review, but to recount my journey of learning about Miyazaki through films and the circumstances that over the years have taught me to appreciate him.]

I hadn't heard anything from Emma for fifteen years when the strange twists of life had separated us at a very young age, taking her to an unknown little place in Northern Italy that, in the eyes of an elementary school child, could seem something unattainable even through the most varied means, a sort of definitive tombstone placed on the aspirations of any meeting in the near or distant future since in those early '90s the only way not to lose sight of each other was postal mail. But goodness, resorting to such an expedient would almost have amounted to a declaration of intentions akin to engagement, and our age certainly could not give rise to such nonsense, so as kids pretending to belong to the serious world of adults, we decided in tacit agreement to lose sight of each other and forget.

Then, as we all know, the new millennium ushered in the apocalyptic revolution of social media, and a few months after registering on yet another site for encounters and networking, I decide one evening to search for her name to find unexpected news about her. Her first and last names have been imprinted in my mind for years now, and it certainly makes an impression to see them take form in the search engine, associating with only one available profile: the fact doesn't surprise me, since her full name is certainly not among the most common, and finding any reference on the social network already makes me think it must really be her and not some improbable case of homonymy. Then there's also a photo. I scrutinize it closely, but the size is truly unfortunate; however, it's a close-up where I can distinguish her semblance. It's an almost artistic black and white shot featuring a face illuminated with an almost unreal brightness, gazing upward with a hint of dark pencil on the cheek, similar to a fake mole or the black tear adorning Pierrot's face. It might be, by the nose, theatrical makeup. There are no elements that might easily link me to the images of youth that I preserve in memory, but I have no doubts or hesitation in guessing the identity of that mysterious image: it's her.

I write her a couple of formal lines to see if she remembers me (I would be surprised if it were otherwise) and if she wants to spend a few words to reminisce about the old times. The message is sent in no time: there's nothing left to do but wait for her reply. Which comes a week later, almost at the last flicker of hope that she might want to reconnect an old thread long buried under the dust of many years of silence. Yes, she remembers me. Indeed, almost unexpectedly due to the unrequested spontaneity, she immediately delves into the heart of the matter, confessing as the first thing how lost she felt when she found out about the impending move that awaited her in her childhood, due to the unacceptable awareness that it would break off the privileged relationship that had been established with me thanks to long afternoons shared at each other's grandparents' homes between role-playing games and math problems. In response, I ask for her phone number, and from that point, our long evening conversations, all aimed at reconstructing the past lived and not lived and framing passions and interests of current days, commence. She commutes between Rome and Paris to cultivate the great passion of theater (hence the nature of the photo taken from stage makeup) intending to simultaneously make it her job, she professes a lifestyle dedicated to an obstinate singleness, always travels by car for fear of flying, loves dancing pizzica, listens to tons of dark wave, and cultivates an unbridled passion for Miyazaki's films. The only thing I share with her is the bachelor status, while everything else creates interesting distances that I feel inclined to bridge by reciprocating with everything I love and that she knows little: electronic music, Calvino's novels, world travels in search of vinyl, and Orson Welles movies.

Day after day, the long chats become the diversion to reconstruct our reciprocal semblances, enriching them with increasingly peculiar and interesting elements: I delve into her passions, and she does the same with mine, suggesting to me this reading or I to her that listening, until the picture is complete. The last element I dwell on is Hayao Miyazaki. I know nothing about Japanese animation, and for me, until then, nothing could exist but the Disney monopoly interspersed here and there with the occasional foray from DreamWorks and Aardman Studios for Wallace and Gromit. I discover then that there is a parallel universe that draws nourishment from Studio Ghibli, founded by Miyazaki in 1985 to create an important series of Japanese animated films including among its directors Miyazaki himself and co-founder Isao Takahata. Emma has no hesitation in extolling the beauty of what she considers the undisputed masterpiece of the Japanese director, "Howl's Moving Castle", urging me to watch it to appreciate Miyazaki's enchanting poetry. I immediately look for the synopsis to understand what it's about: the story centers on young Sophie, who, cursed into an elderly woman by the evil Witch of the Waste's spell, almost fatefully stumbles upon the curious moving castle of the enigmatic wizard Howl, who hides a past that has made him a victim of another mysterious curse himself. I hesitate a bit because of my proverbial presumption, convinced that it’s practically impossible that a series of supposed masterpieces of animation has entirely eluded an amateur cinephile like me, and above all, that Miyazaki and Japanese cinema could be able to chip away at my steadfast beliefs about the goodness of traditional cinema that I have always followed and loved. I believe her with reservation, and it almost becomes a challenge for me to subject myself to the viewing of "Howl's Castle," albeit with the vivid curiosity of seeing if this newfound friend could have taught me something new to get passionate about.

I manage to find the film on a P2P and decide in advance the evening when I can enjoy it attentively, assured of the absence of any distraction that might limit the rigor of my analysis. The sacredness of the moment must be equal to an initiation rite. On the awaited evening of viewing, doors and windows are shut, and so the projection may begin. I take it all in one go, without any pause, despite its full two hours, and I admit at the end to having followed it without hesitation, having been notably engrossed in the not-so-simple plot without showing signs of faltering. But I do not lie to myself: I didn't like it. It's not about a sense of dissatisfaction with an ineffective story or a poor script: the problem is that the film's language is completely unknown to me and doesn't use the comfortable tropes of Western animation. When I watch an animated film, I need good and evil, but in "Howl's Castle," where many characters from the human and animal world succeed each other, the villains become good, and the good are never completely good, so I can't really become attached to any of the characters, nor can I experience the catharsis of seeing the villain defeated, annihilated. I need to smile while enjoying primarily a children's story, given that I expect animation to always address, albeit with its semantic layers, the attention of younger viewers, but in "Howl's Castle," even the children play at acting grown-up, and every breath of supposed innocence gets swept away by a mature seriousness that doesn’t elicit even the shyest smile. Finally, yes, I need to see the prince kiss the princess. Whether he does it with or without tongue, with a peck or with a French kiss, but there should be at least a beautiful union of lips stuck together for a few seconds to celebrate the usual, old, worn triumph of love at the end of a long series of misadventures contrived by the villain of the story. Clearly, there's nothing so blatant in "Howl's Castle," and the celebratory affectionate gestures replaced by rare, innocent kisses of a timid and friendly nature. Yes, that viewing, for which I harbored the slightest hope of being surprised, turned out to be a shipwreck and created a rift between Emma and me. The disappointment is greater than the presumption of being right.

I have no qualms confessing my reservations to her, and I sense from the start that my words of disapproval might upset her: she comes to terms with it, but in reality, it's not that moment of disillusionment that makes our relationship wobble, but a mechanism only partially understandable through which, for a few days, we have reduced our phone calls and limited our interactions to a few quick mobile messages. Something is broken. I'm certain that she has some family annoyance and perhaps some acquaintance she wants to shake off, but I don't have all the elements to understand what's wrong. Undoubtedly, those two months lived, albeit at a distance, amongst long phone calls and evening confessions, are ineluctably over, and it seems we are steering towards an incomprehensible and undesired demise. It’s clear that in the face of all this, especially due to the disappointment caused by Miyazaki, able to lay bare the gap between our different ways of "feeling," and due to a drop of stubborn pride that has gripped me for years, I do nothing to stop this headlong rush towards the chasm of a new oblivion. Indeed, one day a word too many escapes me during a chat conversation, and the play is complete: she reacts resentfully to a hasty judgment and dispenses with me in a few seconds, pretending, for her own prideful reflection, to have a commitment that forces her to bid me a hasty goodbye. December 2008. Since then, I have not heard from her.

Life’s circumstances are rather strange because many events will soon occur that make me quickly forget this brief but pleasant childhood revival, leading me to other shores destined to give a very precise direction to my future. For months that experience remains relegated to the most remote recesses of memory until one day I casually notice on the bulletin of a multiplex the poster of "Porco Rosso," one of Miyazaki’s first feature films, re-released in Italy eighteen years after its release in Japan, something about which I had already read in my indoctrination work on the Japanese director and hadn’t explored due to the disappointing viewing of "Howl’s Castle" recommended by Emma. Indeed, at that point, there’s no choice but for my mind to return to the chats from two years earlier and that animated intention of understanding how a person could transition from childhood to marriage age while maintaining an aura of irresistible interest. Clearly, my decision is to give Miyazaki another chance, and I waste no time in obtaining the film to enjoy it, just like a year earlier with "Howl’s Castle," during a quiet evening in front of the TV. The story is about the Italian Marco Pagot, an expert military aviator who, following an incident in an air combat over the Adriatic during World War I where all his companions perish, has a near-death experience from which he mysteriously awakens transformed into an anthropomorphic pig. Marco, renamed Porco Rosso due to his appearance and crimson-colored seaplane, closes in on himself, abandoning his social life and his beautiful fiancée Gina to dedicate himself, once the war ends, to a career as a bounty hunter of the Air Pirates. The latter, after yet another humiliation at the hands of Porco, decide to enlist another aviation ace, the American Donald Curtis, to annihilate the Italian Red Baron and finally roam undisturbed over the Adriatic skies. Curtis, eager at the same time to catch the attention of the beautiful songstress Gina, engages in a no-holds-barred duel with Porco, causing his seaplane to crash and believing that Marco has drowned in the Adriatic. In reality, the latter manages to survive by gliding onto an island's lush vegetation where he's able to hide the carcass of his seaplane damaged by the American's shots. After reassuring Gina about his health condition, Porco Rosso heads for Milan, intending to get his aircraft repaired by Piccolo S.p.A., where he meets the young Fio, Mr. Piccolo’s granddaughter, who volunteers to lead the seaplane's refurbishment project and manages to sail with Marco under the guise of needing to test the modifications just performed. From that moment, the various adventures unfold, leading Porco and Curtis to a new duel over the Adriatic skies.

If my synopsis stops here, it is certainly not because I dwell on watching the rest of the film but to allow readers the pleasure of enjoying the story’s evolution without foreshadowing the ending, to unravel many knots concerning Porco Rosso and Gina's love story, the fate of the new duel with Curtis, the outcome of the curse that transformed Marco into a pig. I do not dwell on the viewing because the film’s ninety minutes flow lightly and spark in me the unexpected thrill of witnessing a small masterpiece of animation. It is, two years after the disappointing experience of "Howl’s Moving Castle," a dazzling surprise I never imagined encountering, in the presence of this gruff pig aviator, whom it’s hard not to love due to the malicious fate that gave him this grotesque and mocking appearance: Gina knows this well, despite his animalistic traits, being in love with his unwavering demeanor and the poetics of a cursed hero disliked by the dominant Fascist regime during the Italian twenty-year period (famous is his line "I'd rather be a pig than a fascist" spoken to his comrade Ferrarin). But even more enchanting is the seventeen-year-old Fio, a true co-protagonist of the film, with her determined obstinacy that doesn’t hint at doubts but actually contends with her innocent love for Porco, for whom she feels an attraction she humbly knows she must suppress due to the young and inexperienced age that separates her from her beloved. Her fragility is all in the scene where, after loudly reprimanding the entire horde of Air Pirates for their cowardice in defeating Porco by relying on the foreigner Curtis, left alone with Marco, she confesses to trembling from the deep fear felt just earlier and dives into the sea to release the strong tension. A young, exquisitely Miyazakian heroine capable, with her determination, of imprinting the right direction on the course of events. Fio has conquered me, also for that candid kiss she manages to bestow on Porco as a sign of gentle devotion, a feather-light kiss that doesn’t need princesses and knights but rings like a magnificent seal of redemption that reconciles me definitively with Miyazaki, making me further understand some of the themes that were embryonic in the ambiguous "Howl’s Castle." Above all, it makes me realize that the need to have those nuances between good and bad is something that stems from observing the real world, where it’s not said that the braggart Donald Curtis can't behave like a gentleman with Fio, and comrade Ferrarin, while seeing his friend Marco as a dissident, doesn’t hesitate to help him escape the Fascist aviation's offensives. In light of all this, I certainly relinquish my Manichean convictions needing a sharp division between good and evil and comprehend how much good was already in "Howl’s Moving Castle" and the deep and sincere reasons behind Emma's enthusiasm.

From that moment, I review all of Miyazaki's works, from "My Neighbor Totoro" to "Princess Mononoke," from "Spirited Away" to "Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea." Every viewing is a new discovery that I certainly owe to Emma and that bit of stubbornness that led me to re-explore the Miyazaki universe, giving a new chance with the magnificent epiphany of Porco Rosso.

Over ten years have passed since that last contact, and sometimes I think I would like to confess to Emma that she was profoundly right about that passion and managed to leave me a legacy I likely wouldn't have discovered on my own. I think I’d like to talk to her about that splendid scene where Marco sees the aircraft of the recently deceased friends floating above him in an immense cemetery of seaplanes dancing on clouds. I think I’d like to discuss why that degrading transformation happened, probably as an effect of a sense of guilt for being the only man to survive the war. I think I’d like to discuss Sophie, Fio, and all the other Miyazaki heroines I've encountered over time. I think I’d like to talk about how we were ten years earlier.

Yes, I think I’d like that a lot, one day.